| Abstract: | The relative decline of defined benefit (DB) pension plans, and growth of defined contribution (DC) plans, has been often noted but not extensively explored. This paper reports on the construction of a new longitudinal company-based data set on pension plans for the years 1980-86 (including all U.S. companies with large plans, and a 10 percent sample of companies with small plans, at any point during this period). The decline in DB coverage is primarily due to fewer participants in companies maintaining such plans, while very little of the growth in DC coverage is due to companies terminating DB plans. Also, multinomial logit analysis of manufacturing company choices indicates that the higher administrative costs of DB plans lead new adopters to favor DC plans, but this explains little of the tremendous growth in DC plans. In addition, higher industry variability and capital intensity, and smaller company size, lead new adopters to favor DC plans. |
