The shift from defined benefit to defined contribution ...

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The shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pension Plans - Implications for Asset Allocation and Risk Management John Broadbent Domestic Markets Department Reserve Bank of Australia Sydney, NSW 2000 Michael Palumbo Division of Research and Statistics Federal Reserve Board 20th and C Streets, NW Washington DC 20551 and Elizabeth Woodman Financial Markets Department Bank of Canada 234 Wellington, Ottawa Ontario K1A 0G9 December 2006 Prepared for a Working Group on Institutional Investors, Global Savings and Asset Allocation established by the Committee on the Global Financial System The analysis and conclusions set forth in this paper are those of the authors and do not indicate concurrence by other members of the research staff or the Board of Governors or any other officials in the Federal Reserve System or at the Federal Reserve Bank of Australia or at the Bank of Canada.

The reforms are largely a response to the deterioration in the funding of defined benefit (DB) pension plans from about 20012 and longstanding concerns regarding the effect of complex, opaque pension accounting methods on the valuation of the DB pension plan and the sponsoring firm. Recent and prospective reforms, in

  Pension, Contributions, Defined, Funding, Defined contribution