Cash balance pension plans: A case of standard-setting inadequacy

Accounting for and ownership of U.S. private employee pensions has long been a controversial and politically contested terrain. The uniqueness in the U.S. of using employers as the principal provider of pensions makes the reporting of pensions more problematic since the corporate employers providing pensions are not strictly accountable to only the pensioners. Over the last quarter century there has been a marked swing in power toward management and away from employees making it possible for increasing numbers of U.S. companies to switch from conventional defined benefit plans to cash balance plans. This paper provides a “case” study of how accounting standard-setters framed the pension reporting problem vis-à-vis how they frame the “reporting problem” in general. Utilizing various sources of commentary about the phenomenon of cash-balance conversions, we triangulate on the pension problem to demonstrate how current FASB disclosure rules fail to satisfy the condition of neutrality and how those rules have facilitated the shifting of economic risk from shareholders to employees.     

Legal issues in cash balance pension plan conversions

Replacing a traditional pension with a cash balance plan raises a number of complicated and unsettled legal issues, including the protection of accrued benefits, the rate of benefit accrual, age discrimination and notice requirements. This article discusses those issues and concludes that routine conversions to cash balance plans appear to be legal both currently and into the foreseeable future.     

Factors affecting pension and health benefits availability in small and large business

Factors affecting the provision of fringe benefits are receiving more attention as fringe benefits have become an increasingly important component of total compensation. Despite the importance of trends in fringe benefits to businesses and the economy, the effects of factors--including firm size--on the provision of fringe benefits have received only limited systematic attention. Studies have examined either worker characteristics or firm/establishment/ industry characteristics, but few have combined both types of characteristics to study a more comprehensive set of determinants. The author addresses this limitation using new data from a nationally representative sample of almost 600 firms. The focus of this study is on the two most important fringe benefits--pension plans and health insurance.     

“拉卡拉”业务模式启示

电子商务的蓬勃发展为第三方支付企业提供了前所未有的发展空间。随着社会经济的繁荣、客户层次的变化以及支付需求的不断增加,第三方支付企业如雨后春笋般脱颖而出,它们服务于不同的客户群体,不断刷新支付市场的版图。“拉卡拉”作为近几年异军突起的第三方支付平台,以其社区化、家庭化的便利支付,网罗了越来越多的客户。     

Cash balance plans: helping employers meet today's staffing needs

The author examines how cash balance plans better meet employers' staffing needs than traditional pension plans. He asserts that out-of-date pension laws, rather than employers, are responsible for creating the very "abuses" that so many are complaining about with regard to cash balance plan conversions.     

柜员现金自动化助力银行网点转型——访深圳市紫金支点技术股份有限公司研发中心总经理葛志标

自助式服务和电子银行等渠道以其便利性赢得了越来越广泛的认可,但人们还是偏好通过银行网点获取人性化的服务。因此,数量众多的银行网点仍是商业银行发展零售业务的重要手段和有效的销售渠道。为了顺应市场需求、充分发挥银行网点的优势,各商业银行都在积极实现网点转型。网点转型是指网点的业务功能由结算交易型向营销服务型的转变。具体来说,就是用统一的标准规范网点的服务营销模式,实现服务标准化和客户体验的一致性, 客户满意度。银行网点     

The implications of TARP: Evidence from bank performance and CEO pension benefits

This study examines the effect of compensation restrictions introduced by the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) of 2008 on the performance of banks and their compensation structures. It documents significant performance improvement among TARP banks that experienced Chief Executive Officer (CEO) resignations after their banks accepted TARP funds. The improvement is most significant in the year following CEO resignation. In addition, TARP banks that kept their CEOs show a significant increase in CEO pensions post-TARP. TARP banks that did not experience CEO resignations, thus, appear to substitute pension increases for their CEOs to mitigate the TARP-induced decrease in conventional forms of compensation. Further analysis on all banks without CEO resignations shows that TARP banks have significantly higher increase in pension benefits post 2009 than banks that chose to decline TARP funds. The evidence shows that increased pension arrangements play a significant role in CEOs’ decisions to remain in their roles despite the constraints imposed by TARP.     

Cash holdings in family firms: CEO identity and implications for firm value

We investigate the cash holdings policy of family firms and examine potential value implications. Family firms hold more cash than other firms, with an average difference of 2.3% of total assets. This result is driven by firms managed by heir CEOs. While the cash holdings policy of first‐generation family firms is more sensitive to firm risk, consistent with founders’ increased risk aversion, that of later‐generation firms is more sensitive to information asymmetry and agency conflicts. Heir CEOs’ cash policies destroy value, as the marginal value of an additional Euro suffers from a 38.3‐cent discount, on average, relative to non‐family firms.     

Demand and productivity components of business cycles: Estimates and implications

Standard stochastic growth models provide theoretical restrictions on output decomposition which can be used to investigate whether productivity shocks played a major role in observed business cycles. Applying these restrictions to US data leads to the following findings: (i) Business cycles implied by productivity shocks are mildly correlated to overall fluctuations and help account for a few episodes of US postwar recessions. However, only 20% of US fluctuations can be explained by these shocks. (ii) Most fluctuations seem instead to be due to “nominal demand” shocks, i.e. shocks which move output and prices in the same direction, but whose effects on output are ultimately transitory. (iii) Canonical sticky price models in the new-neoclassical synthesis tradition can account for the cyclical comovements of output and prices, but canonical, frictionless, RBC models cannot.     

The business cycle implications of reciprocity in labor relations

A reciprocity-based model of wage determination is incorporated into a modern dynamic general equilibrium framework and estimated on U.S. data. The estimation reveals that rent-sharing (between workers and firms) and wage entitlement (based on past wages) are important determinants of wage setting for the model to fit the dynamic responses of output, wages and inflation to various exogenous shocks. Aggregate employment conditions (measuring workers’ outside option), on the other hand, are found to play only a negligible role for wage setting. These results are consistent with micro-studies on reciprocity in labor relations but contrast with traditional efficiency wage models which emphasize aggregate labor market variables as the determinants of wage setting.     

Funding money-creating banks: Cash funding,balance sheet funding and the moral hazard of currency elasticity

Once banks are viewed as money creators rather than financial intermediaries, a distinction between their cash funding and balance sheet funding can be made. This distinction opens up various insights. It allows for a fuller explanation of the cash needs of banks with reference to the pattern of their cash gains and losses. It facilitates an understanding of the central bank as not only a cash lender of last resort (LOLR) for some banks some of the time, but also as a cash lender of continual and only resort (LOCOR) for all banks all of the time. It leads to novel insights into the sources of banks' balance sheet funding. The paper investigates the various implications of the central bank's elastic currency policy in its role as LOCOR, particularly how it thereby incites considerably more moral hazard than conventionally acknowledged. This realisation opens up a better understanding of the banking sector's proneness to excess and the economy's susceptibility to financial cycles. The paper concludes by weighing the merits of the only two policy strategies by which banking excess can be checked.     

Design of employee pension benefits model and China's pension gender gap

The pension gender gap is a universal concern, and policymakers worldwide strive to address the factors leading to gender inequality. This study examines the pension gender gap problem and its causes and effects in China, conducting micro-empirical simulations on China's employee pension benefits model. We propose solutions to this gender inequality and suggest an intra-family pension benefits transfer for women in a family framework. For family units headed by a single woman, we recommend enhanced tax-deductible contributions by prior employers to strengthen the equality of pensions between genders throughout retirement. This additional support and enhancement of female pensions can effectively narrow the pension gap between male and female beneficiaries while maintaining the system's long-term sustainability. More importantly, these proposed enhancements minimize acute poverty while improving the living standards of female pensioners.     

Share prices and pension funding: An empirical test of the joint effect of pension insurance and the pension tax shield

This article examines the joint significance of the tax benefits of pension funding and the value of government sponsored pension insurance in determining the efficacy of corporate pension funding. When the pension tax shield benefits are dominant, additional funding may enhance shareholder wealth. However, additional funding is observed to have negative effects on equity prices when the value of pension insurance is dominant relative to the value of the pension tax shield. When neither the tax or insurance effects are dominant, marginal adjustments in pension funding apparently will not alter corporate share prices.     

Attitude toward business environment of auditing,corporate governance and balance between auditing and marketing

The aim of this study was to evaluate the attitude of Iranian auditors toward balance between auditing and marketing with respect to two important components of audit process such as business environment of auditing and corporate governance. The analysis is based on survey data from 257 respondents. To achieve the research aims, we specified four hypotheses based on social theories. The results of this study show that the auditors having positive attitude toward marketing and those who consider it as significant are able, to a large extent, balance spent time for inherent auditing tasks and marketing activities. In addition, the results show that an increase by a unit for the attitude toward business environment results in 0.489 unit increase in attitude toward balance of time spent on marketing and auditing activities, of which 0.396 is direct impact and 0.093 is indirect impact.     

Optimal fringe benefit taxes: the implications of business use

Unless fringe benefits are taxed, remuneration may be distorted toward such benefits and away from wages and salaries. A principle for setting such taxes has been proposed in previous work. In particular, the value to workers of fringe benefits would be taxed at a rate equivalent to that on wages and salaries. The current paper reexamines this principle in a model where workers’ valuations are heterogeneous and unobservable to the tax authority. This model does have cases that are broadly consistent with the existing principle, but it also highlights cases in which taxes should be higher on fringe benefits that produce value for the firm.     

The effect of pension accounting on corporate pension asset allocation

We examine the impact of new pension disclosures and subsequent full pension recognition under FRS 17 and IAS 19 in the United Kingdom and SFAS 158 in the United States on pension asset allocation. These standards require recognition of net pension surplus/deficit on the balance sheet and actuarial gains/losses in other comprehensive income. Therefore, these standards introduce volatility into comprehensive income and balance sheets. We identify a disclosure period during which UK companies disclosed all the required data under FRS 17 in the notes without recognition. We also identify a full recognition period starting 1 year before until 1 year after the adoption of FRS 17/IAS 19 (UK) and SFAS 158 (US). We predict and find that UK companies, on average, shifted pension assets from equity to debt securities during both the disclosure and the full recognition periods. We also find that while before the adoption of SFAS 158 US companies maintained a stable allocation to equities and bonds, these companies, on average, shifted funds from equities to bonds around the adoption of SFAS 158. Cross-sectional analysis shows that the shift away from equities is related to changes in funding levels, shorter investment horizons, increased financial leverage, and the expected impact of the new standards on shareholders’ equity.     

Cash Flow Accounting and Liquidity: Cash Flow Potential and Wealth

The persistence of a minority interest in ‘cash flow accounting’ alongside the dominant financial reporting pattern that gives cash flow statements a distinctly secondary role in the line-up of flow statements suggests that something is missing from the analyses of the interested parties. The major theme of this paper is that users rely on historical cash flow reporting for information relevant to projecting enterprise liquidity in the short run, and on financial statements based on accrual-deferral accounting for information relevant to their interest in wealth and income. An explicit distinction between the two accounting objectives (providing information for use in assessing future enterprise liquidity and providing information for use in assessing enterprise wealth and income and performance against investors' augmentation-of-wealth objective) is recommended as a basis for clarifying the issues. That distinction suggests the value of two quite different, but related, sets of data: historical cash flows and stocks and flows of cash potentials.     

现付成本与现销收入一步到位的确定

现付成本与现销收两个重要的现金流量指标，同时又是一些重要财务比率计算的依据，现付成本与现销收入常规的分析调整是采取“逐步式”的方法，一步到位的方法更准确，快速。     

新旧企业会计法则比较(一):现金流量表

今年初,财政部发布了经过修订的《现金流量表》、《债务重组》、《投资》、《会计政策、会计估计变更和会计差错更正》及《非倾向性交易》等五个企业会计准则.     

Earnings Smoothing,Cash Flow Volatility,and CEO Cash Bonus

Prior studies generally relate managers’ decisions to smooth earnings to their desire to maximize their overall compensation and to smooth their consumption. However, earnings smoothing could also be driven by the firm's expected benefits from reporting a smooth earnings stream. Our paper provides empirical support for the latter explanation of earnings smoothing. Specifically, we find that while CEO bonus on average increases with earnings smoothing, the increase is larger when the firm's cash flow volatility is higher. Further, CEO bonus is shielded from the negative effects of lower earnings arising from the need to report a smoother earnings stream.