TY  - JOUR
AU  - Papke,Leslie E.
AU  - Petersen,Mitchell
AU  - Poterba,James M.
TI  - Did 401(k) Plans Replace Other Employer Provided Pensions?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 4501
PY  - 1996
Y2  - June 1996
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4501
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4501.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Leslie E. Papke
Department of Economics
110 Marshall- Adams Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
E-Mail: PAPKE@MSU.EDU

Mitchell A. Petersen
Kellogg School of Management
Northwestern University
2001 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL  60208
Tel: 847/467-1281
Fax: 847/491-5719
E-Mail: mpetersen@northwestern.edu

James M. Poterba
Department of Economics
MIT, E52-350
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA  02142-1347
Tel: 617/253-6673
Fax: 617/258-7804
E-Mail: poterba@nber.org
M1  - published as Leslie E. Papke, Mitchell A. Petersen, James M. Poterba. "Do 401(k) Plans Replace Other Employer-Provided Pensions?," in David A. Wise, editor, "Advances in the Economics of Aging" University of Chicago Press (1996)

M2  - featured in NBER digest on 1994-04-01
AB  - This paper reports the findings from a new survey of firms that provide 401(k) plans for their employees.  Our results suggest that few 401(k) plans replaced pre-existing defined benefit pension plans, although a substantial fraction replaced previous defined contribution thrift and profit sharing plans.  Our survey results also provide new evidence on patterns of 401(k) participation.  We find significant persistence in firm-level participation rates from one year to the next, which supports the view that 401(k) participants are not making marginal decisions of whether or not to contribute to the plan in a given month, or even year, but rather make long-term commitments to participate in these plans.
ER  -