Determinants of Defined-Contribution Japanese Corporate Pension Coverage

2001年日本国会通过的《企业年金法》首次在日本的企业年金制度中引入了自愿确定缴费（DC）计划，本文旨在探讨日本企业最初决定采用DC计划的经验决定因素。我们考察的解释变量是：a）以雇员人数表示的公司规模，B）现有固定收益计划中的累积养老金资产，c）公司现有固定收益计划的资金不足程度，d）公司的杠杆率（债务/资产比率）在其资本结构中，e）公司的盈利能力，f）公司支付的平均工资，g）工会化的程度，（h）工人的平均年龄;及（i）公司所属行业的职位更替率。我们采用logit模型进行估计，根据这些变量评估初始采纳的可能性。主要发现是，采用DC计划的可能性增加与企业规模的增加，以及在公司的盈利能力，现有DB养老金福利的金额累积每个员工，和公司的负债/资产比率的增加。此外，采用DC计划的可能性随着现有DB计划资金不足的增加以及雇员平均年龄的增加而下降。我们发现，它主要是大型的，盈利的公司与大量积累的DB义务，提供新的DC计划，形成鲜明对比的DC养老金的美国公司发病率。

The passage of the 2001 Corporate Pension Legislations in the Japanese Diet (Parliament) has introduced voluntary defined contribution (DC) pension plans for the first time in the Japanese corporate pension system.The paper is motivated to assess the empirical determinants of the initial decision by Japanese corporations to adopt DC plan. The explanatory variables we examine are a)the firm size in terms of the number of employees, b)cumulative pension assets in the existing defined benefit (DB) plans, c)the extent of under-funding of the firm' s existing DS plans, d)the firm' s leverage (debt/asset ratio) in its capital structure, e)profitability of the firm, f)average wages paid by the firm, g)the extent of unionization, h)the average age of workers, and i)the job turnover rate of the industry to which the firm belongs. We employ the logit model for the estimation, assessing the probability of the initial adoption on the basis of these variables. The key findings are that the likelihood of adopting DC plan increases with an increase in the firm size, as well as with an increase in the profitability of the firm, the amount of existing DB pension benefits accumulated per employee, and the firm' s debt/asset ratio. In addition, the likelihood of adopting DC plan declines with an increase in under-funding of the existing DB plan, as well as with an increase in the average age of employees. We find that it is mainly large, profitable corporations with substantial accumulated DB obligations that are offering new DC plans, in sharp contrast to the American corporate incidence of DC pension.