The Crisis in Retirement Planning
By Robert C. Merton | Harvard Business Review
Corporate America really started to take notice of pensions in the wake of the dot-com crash, in 2000. Interest rates and stock prices both plummeted, which meant that the value of pension liabilities rose while the value of the assets held to meet them fell. A number of major firms in weak industries, notably steel and airlines, went bankrupt in large measure because of their inability to meet their obligations under defined-benefit pension plans.
The result was an acceleration of America’s shift away from defined-benefit (DB) pensions toward defined-contribution (DC) retirement plans, which transfer the investment risk from the company to the employee. Once an add-on to traditional retirement planning, DC plans—epitomized by the ubiquitous 401(k)—have now become the main vehicles for private retirement saving.
But although the move to defined-contribution plans arguably reduces the liabilities of business, it has, if anything, increased the likelihood of a major crisis down the line as the baby boomers retire. To begin with, putting relatively complex investment decisions in the hands of individuals with little or no financial expertise is problematic. Research demonstrates that decision making is pervaded with behavioral biases. (To some extent, biases can be compensated for by appropriately framing choices. For example, making enrollment in a 401(k) plan the default option—employees must opt out rather than opt in—has materially increased the rate of enrollment in the plans.)
More dangerous yet is the shift in focus away from retirement income to return on investment that has come with the introduction of saver-managed DC plans: Investment decisions are now focused on the value of the funds, the returns on investment they deliver, and how volatile those returns are. Yet the primary concern of the saver remains what it always has been: Will I have sufficient income in retirement to live comfortably? Clearly, the risk and return variables that now drive investment decisions are not being measured in units that correspond to savers’ retirement goals and their likelihood of meeting them. Thus, it cannot be said that savers’ funds are being well managed.
In the following pages I will explore the consequences of measuring and regulating pension fund performance like a conventional investment portfolio, explain how retirement plan sponsors (that is, employers) and investment managers can engage with savers to present them with meaningful choices, and discuss the implications for pension investments and regulation.
These recommendations apply most immediately to the United States and the United Kingdom, which have made the most dramatic shift among developed nations toward putting retirement risks and responsibilities in the hands of individuals. But the trend toward defined-contribution plans is ubiquitous in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Thus the principles of providing for retirement income apply everywhere.
