Pension underfunding and the expected return on pension assets: The impact of the 2008 financial crisis
利用2008年金融危机作为外生冲击，研究发现美国企业养老金计划从资金充足转为不足时，会提高预期回报率假设以减少会计费用，资金恶化导致预期回报率上升28-79个基点，费用降低约5.23%-14.76%。
Abstract We use the 2008 crisis as an exogenous shock to the pension funding status of U.S. corporate defined benefit (DB) pension plans to examine its impact on the assumption of the expected return on pension assets ( ER ). Contrary to prior literature, we find that DB pension plans transitioning from funded to underfunded status make expense‐reducing assumptions by increasing their ER . We also document that the ER manipulation is larger for plans whose funding after 2008 drops significantly. The funding deterioration conservatively generates a 28–79 basis points increase in ER , reducing the pension accounting expense by about 5.23%–14.76% ($3.49 to $9.85 million). Our results are robust to controlling for the shock induced by the global financial crisis on corporate performance and other potential channels affecting ER .