Changes in the Funded Status of Retirement Plans after the Adoption of SFAS No. 158: Economic Improvement or Balance Sheet Management?†
Changes in the Funded Status of Retirement Plans after the Adoption of SFAS No. 158: Economic Improvement or Balance Sheet Management?†
复制标题
采用 SFAS 第 158 号后退休计划的资助状况发生变化：经济改善还是资产负债表管理？†
DOI：
10.1111/j.1911-3846.2012.01190.x
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发表时间：
2013
影响因子：
3.6
通讯作者：
Denise A. Jones
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Denise A. Jones
财务会计准则第158号（SFAS 158）要求公司在2006年12月15日之后结束的财政年度的资产负债表上报告退休计划的资金状况。在此之前，平均退休计划资金不足，在采用SFAS 158之后，资金不足的情况有所减少。在本研究中，我调查管理层的激励措施，以改善资助的地位。我开发了一个全面的模型，使用手工收集的数据的所有来源的变化，在退休计划的资金状况，包括会计假设的变化和结构性变化（如计划修订或冻结）。我发现，公司有大量未记录的养老金负债和较小的公司有一个改善，他们的养老金计划的资金状况，由于管理人员的义务减少精算假设，以及采取行动，影响了基本结构的计划。此外，我发现，债务承包激励公司的经理人通过机会主义地选择精算假设来增加资金状况，从而对SFAS 158的采用做出了反应;但是，我没有发现任何证据表明他们通过改变养老金计划的结构做出了反应。这是预料之中的，因为这些公司往往有强大的工会存在，因此修改计划或冻结福利的能力有限。这些结果突出了考虑集体谈判和其他外部压力所面临的债务约束公司的管理人员，因为这些公司的管理人员可能无法应对不断变化的会计准则采取真实的行动的重要性。
Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 158 (SFAS 158) requires companies to report the funded status of retirement plans on the balance sheet for fiscal years ending after December 15, 2006. Prior to this, the average retirement plan was underfunded, and after the adoption of SFAS 158 this underfunding decreased. In this study, I investigate management’s incentives to improve the funded status. I develop a comprehensive model using hand-collected data of all sources of the change in the funded status of retirement plans, including both changes to accounting assumptions and structural changes (such as plan amendments or freezes). I find that companies with a large unrecorded pension liability and smaller companies had an improvement in their pension plan funded status due to managers making obligation decreasing actuarial assumptions, as well as taking actions that affected the underlying structure of the plan. In addition, I find that managers of companies with debt contracting incentives responded to the adoption of SFAS 158 by opportunistically selecting actuarial assumptions to increase the funded status; however, I find no evidence that they responded by altering the structure of their pension plans. This is expected as these companies often have a strong union presence and therefore a limited ability to amend a plan or freeze benefits. These results highlight the importance of considering collective bargaining and other outside pressures faced by managers of debt constrained companies because managers of these companies may be unable to respond to changing accounting standards by taking real actions.