Making Federal Pension Policy Work

Abstract

Millions of Americans retire while they are still productive. Of these, many will have the resources to enjoy all of their golden years. Unfortunately, many others will face economic hardships after they have exhausted their own resources but have become too frail to return to work. Part of the problem is that the current pension system is fraught with financial incentives that push ablebodied elderly workers into retirement just when they should instead be encouraged to remain in the workforce to accumulate additional retirement assets. This paper recommends a number of ways to change federal pension laws in order to encourage elderly workers to remain in the workforce. For example, this paper recommends toughening the penalty on premature distributions, repealing the minimum distribution rules, and repealing the exceptions to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act that permit retirement plans to provide early retirement incentives and subsidies.

This paper also considers whether the government should require that all retirement plans be neutral as to the timing of retirement. In an age-neutral world, workers would always accrue more benefits if they kept working. Consequently, more workers would remain in the workforce, accumulating additional assets for their eventual retirement.

Finally, this paper also considers how federal pension policy could help counteract the tendency of Americans to retire too early because they underestimate their life expectancies, overestimate their financial resources, and fail to understand the deleterious effects of inflation. In particular, this paper recommends that the government require that virtually all retirement plans pay at least a portion of their benefits in the form of an inflation-adjusted annuity.     

Efficient Post-Retirement Asset Allocation

Abstract

To examine post-retirement asset allocation, an extension to the classic Markowitz risk-return framework is suggested. Assuming that retirees make constant (real dollar) annual withdrawals from their portfolios, reward and risk measures are defined to be the mean and standard deviation of wealth remaining at end of life. Asset returns and time of death are both treated as random variables. Assuming constant lifetime asset allocation, the risk and reward measures can be evaluated analytically, and an efficient frontier can be determined. Life annuities can be used to extend the left-hand (low-risk) side of the efficient frontier. The desired level of wealth at end of life can be used to choose a desirable portfolio on the efficient frontier. The desirable portfolio strongly depends on the withdrawal rate. It is suggested (although not proven) that asset allocations strategies that vary with age do not add efficiency in this model, and asset allocation strategies that vary with wealth can add efficiency.     

Stock salience and the asymmetric market effect of consumer sentiment news

We document asymmetric announcement effects of consumer sentiment news on United States stock and stock futures markets. While a negative market effect occurs upon the release of bad sentiment news, there is no market reaction for the counterpart good news. This supports the “negativity effect” hypothesis. Notably, this effect seems most likely to occur in salient stocks, which is consistent with the availability heuristic.     

Forecasting Sales of New Contingent Products: An Application to the Compact Disc Market

Estimating the sales potential of new products before an actual launch is a major problem confronting marketing and new products managers. Several modeling efforts for both new durable products and consumer package goods have been reported. An area which has received little explicit treatment, however, is that of new contingent product sales. A specific case of such products is the close relationship between software (consumables or accessory items subject to repeat purchase), and hardware (the original durable good required for use of the software). Examples of this relationship include video cassette recorders and VCR tapes; microcomputers and floppy diskettes; and cameras and photographic film. In this article Barry Bayus discusses a practical method for estimating hardware and software sales of such products. Effects due to different market segment behaviors, pricing, awareness levels, and purchase intentions are incorporated into the model. Results from a study of the compact disc prerecorded audio market by RCAlAriola are presented in order to illustrate how the model can be applied and how the results are useful in making managerial decisions.     

Parametric and Semiparametric Modeling of the Off-Farm Labor Supply of Agrarian Households in Transition Bulgaria

The reaction of labor markets to economic reforms is an important indicator of the progress of transition. Because of diminished government support and the breakup of state and collective enterprises, labor market adjustments in the transition economies have been particularly severe in the agricultural sector. This article evaluates the off-farm labor market for a sample of agrarian households in transition Bulgaria. We give particular attention to the distributional assumptions that underlie standard approaches to the evaluation of labor supply. A variety of specification tests are considered and support for standard maximum likelihood estimates which rely on normality as a maintained hypothesis is mixed. Alternative semiparametric (distribution-free) estimators are also considered. The empirical results indicate that, five years after the initiation of the transition, off-farm labor supply patterns for Bulgarian agricultural households are similar to what is commonly observed in developed market economies. Labor supply is positively affected by factors such as education and work experience which are hypothesized to increase off-farm wages. Social benefit programs providing monetary or in-kind support payments are shown to significantly decrease off-farm work.     

Computer room risk assessment

Large computer systems have become pervasive in today's “Information Society.” In airlines, banking, telecommunications and many other businesses, the computer system provides the competitive edge. The risk of damage to either equipment or data or both has become a vital concern.