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Pension Plans and Employee Performance

Evidence, Analysis, and Policy

In this provocative book, Richard A. Ippolito explores the relationship between employees’ preferences for certain types of pension plans and their productivity. Ippolito begins by reviewing how pensions influence workers’ behavior on the job, helping employers reduce early quit rates and increase early retirement rates. In a novel contribution, Ippolito then shows how pensions can assist employers in attracting and retaining workers who have personal attributes valued by the firm.

Challenging the accepted view of defined contribution plans, such as the 401k, as merely convenient tax-deferred savings plans, Ippolito argues that these plans can help firms select and pay their best workers without expending monitoring resources. Building on his proposals for managing private pension plans, Ippolito concludes with a blueprint for fixing the social security system that would promote incentives to work and save while at the same time improving the system’s financial condition.

274 pages | 33 line drawings, 46 tables | 6 x 9 | © 1997

Economics and Business: Business--Business Economics and Management Studies

Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
Ch. 1: Developments in the Market for Private Pensions
Ch. 2: Defined Benefit Plans as Implicit Contracts
Ch. 3: Impact of Pensions on Quit Rates
Ch. 4: Quits and Retirements in the Federal Government
Ch. 5: Pensions and Retirement Patterns
Ch. 6: Role of Pensions in Earlier Retirement after 1970
Ch. 7: Toward Explaining the Growth of Defined Contribution Plans
Ch. 8: Sorting across Plan Type
Ch. 9: Encouraging High Discounters to Quit
Ch. 10: Aligning Pay and Productivity: 401k Plans
Ch. 11: Reliability as a Hidden Worker Attribute
Ch. 12: Tax Considerations and Plan Choice
Ch. 13: A Pension Tax Policy for Low Discounters
Ch. 14: Incentives, High Discounters, and Social Security
Ch. 15: Reforms for the Disability and Medicare Programs
Notes
Selected References
Index

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