Determinants of Defined-Contribution Japanese Corporate Pension Coverage

2001年日本国会通过的《企业年金立法》首次在日本企业年金制度中引入了自愿固定缴费(DC)养老金计划，本文旨在评估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)员工数量方面的公司规模，b)现有固定收益(DB)计划中的累计养老金资产，c)公司S现有DS计划资金不足的程度，d)公司S在其资本结构中的杠杆率(债务/资产比率)，e)公司的盈利能力，f)公司支付的平均工资，g)公司成立工会的程度，h)工人的平均年龄，以及i)公司所属行业的工作流失率。我们使用Logit模型进行估计，根据这些变量评估最初采用的可能性。主要的研究结果是，采用DC计划的可能性随着公司规模的增加而增加，也随着公司的盈利能力、每位员工现有的DB养老金累积金额和公司的S负债/资产比率的增加而增加。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员工平均年龄的增加而下降。我们发现，提供新DC计划的主要是具有大量累积DB债务的大型、盈利的公司，这与美国公司DC养老金的发生率形成了鲜明对比。

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.