Wharton-SMU Research Center

In-House Seminar

Guest Speaker:

Olivia S. Mitchell
International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor; Professor of Insurance and Risk Management and Business and Public Policy; Executive Director, Pension Research Council; and Director, Boettner Center for Pensions and Retirement Research, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Date & Venue:
Date: 9 December 2005, Friday
Time: 4.00pm-5.45pm
Venue: Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Level 2, Networked Seminar Room 2.4
Singapore Management University
50 Stamford Road, Singapore 178899
(Location Map) Please note our new campus address.

Topic:
Turning Workers into Savers? Incentives, Liquidity, and Choice in 401(K) Plan Design

Abstract:
We develop a comprehensive model of 401(k) pension design that reflects the complex tax, savings, liquidity and investment incentives of such plans. Using a new dataset on some 500 plans covering nearly 740,000 workers, we show that employer matching contributions have only a modest impact on eliciting additional retirement saving. In the typical 401(k) plan, only 10 percent of non-highly compensated workers are induced to save more by match incentives; and 30 percent fail to join their plan at all, despite the fact that the company-proffered match would grant them a real return premium of 1-5% above market rates if they contributed. Such indifference to retirement saving incentives cannot be attributed to liquidity or investment constraints. These results underscore the need for alternative approaches beyond matching contributions, if retirement saving is to become broader based..

Registration:
This is a free seminar. Admission is on first-come-first-served. Please register early to avoid disappointment.
To register, please click here

Enquiries:
Ms. Lim Lih Yeng
Email: lylim@smu.edu.sg, Tel: 6828-0197
Ms. Priscilla Cheng
Email: priscillacheng@smu.edu.sg, Tel: 6828-0383