Title

What Determines Corporate Pension Fund Risk-taking Strategy?

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-2013

Publication Source

Journal of Banking & Finance

Abstract

Corporate sponsors of defined benefit pension plans generally assume low investment risk when they have low funding ratios and high default risk, consistent with the risk management hypothesis. However, for financially distressed sponsors and sponsors that freeze, terminate, or convert defined benefit to defined contribution plans, the risk-shifting incentive (moral hazard) dominates. Pension fund risk-taking is also affected by labor unionization and sponsor incentives to maximize tax benefits, restore financial slack, and justify the accounting choices of pension assumptions. Sponsors shift toward an aggressive risk strategy when their pension plans emerge from underfunding, bankruptcy risk is reduced, or marginal tax rate decreases. Overall, we show that corporate sponsors adopt a dynamic risk-taking strategy in their pension fund investments.

Inclusive pages

597–613

ISBN/ISSN

0378-4266

Comments

Permission documentation is on file.

Publisher

Elsevier

Volume

37

Peer Reviewed

yes

Issue

2

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