HENDRIK P. VAN DALEN, Tilburg University, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)
Email: H.P.vanDalen@uvt.nl
KENE HENKENS, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute
Email: HENKENS@NIDI.NL
DOUGLAS A. HERSHEY, Oklahoma State University - Stillwater
Email: douglas.hershey@okstate.edu

Are retirement savings sufficient to finance a good pension income? This highly uncertain and subjective dimension of life cycle decision making is assessed among married working individuals using an identical survey distributed to Dutch and American workers in 2007. Despite marked differences in expected and needed pension replacement rates - where the Dutch replacement rates are systematically higher than the American rates - the perceived savings adequacy is more or less the same across Dutch and American workers. Moreover, individuals' perceived savings adequacy was found to be influenced by the three groups of factors: institutional forces, social forces and psychological dispositions. This study shows that differences in the mind set of American workers plays a far larger role in explaining differences in perceptions of savings adequacy than it does in the Netherlands.

JONATHAN BARRY FORMAN, University of Oklahoma College of Law
Email: JFORMAN@OU.EDU

There were 47 million participants in 401(k) plans in 2005, up from just 8 million in the 1980s. More than 90 percent of 401(k) plan participants can choose how to invest their accounts, and nearly half invest in stock funds. That's a lot of money and a lot of investors. At bottom, the investment industry makes a very healthy living off other people's money.

This chapter considers how plan sponsors, plan participants, and government regulators can get control over 401(k) fees. At the outset, Section 2 provides an overview of the fees and costs that can arise in connection with a typical 401(k) plan. Next, Section 3 outlines the statutory and regulatory systems that regulate these costs and offers a simple example to highlight some of the major concerns about fees. Section 4 then discusses most recent developments relating to the regulation of 401(k) fees. Finally, Section 5 offers some concluding remarks about how we can get control over 401(k) plan fees and costs.

ANNAMARIA LUSARDI, Dartmouth College - Department of Economics, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Email: annamaria.lusardi@dartmouth.edu

Increasingly, individuals are in charge of their own financial security and are confronted with ever more complex financial instruments. However, there is evidence that many individuals are not well-equipped to make sound saving decisions. This paper demonstrates widespread financial illiteracy among the U.S. population, particularly among specific demographic groups. Those with low education, women, African-Americans, and Hispanics display particularly low levels of literacy. Financial literacy impacts financial decision-making. Failure to plan for retirement, lack of participation in the stock market, and poor borrowing behavior can all be linked to ignorance of basic financial concepts. While financial education programs can result in improved saving behavior and financial decision-making, much can be done to improve these programs' effectiveness.

JACK VANDERHEI, Temple University - Risk Management & Insurance & Actuarial Science, Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI)
Email: TEMPLE@VANDERHEI.COM
CRAIG COPELAND, Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI)
Email: COPELAND@EBRI.ORG

This paper simulates (under several assumptions) the likely impact of 401(k) plan sponsors switching from voluntary enrollment systems to automatic enrollment designs with automatic escalation of contributions for a significant portion of workers (not just current 401(k) participants or those eligible to participate). This analysis indicates that even under the most conservative assumptions for auto-escalation of contributions, switching 401(k) plans to auto-enrollment is likely to have a very significant positive impact in generating additional retirement savings for many workers, especially for low-income workers. When results are aggregated across all income categories, the increase in the value of 401(k) accumulations at age 65 as a multiple of final earnings for those currently ages 25-29 would be approximately 2.4 to 2.6 times final salary by switching from voluntary enrollment to automatic enrollment. Although the aggregate results favor automatic enrollment, distributional analysis of the differences between the two systems indicates that the higher paid are not likely to benefit as much from such a change.

The median 401(k) accumulations for the lowest-income quartile of these workers (assuming all 401(k) plans were voluntary enrollment) would only be 0.1 times final earnings at age 65 (this is largely due to the fact that 41 percent of workers - as opposed to participants - were assumed to have zero balances at age 65). However, if all 401(k) plans are assumed to be using the auto-enrollment provisions under PPA, the median 401(k) accumulations for the lowest-income quartile jumps to 2.5 times final earnings under the most conservative assumptions and 4.5 times final earnings under the most beneficial assumptions. Even for the top 25 percent of these workers (when ranked by 401(k) accumulations as a multiple of final earnings), there are large increases: the multiple under a voluntary enrollment scenario is 1.8 times final earnings, whereas auto-enrollment provides multiples ranging from 6.5 to 10.4, depending on auto-escalation of contributions. Comparing income replacement targets generated in previous EBRI work with these simulated 401(k) accumulations shows that, even with the large increases that can be expected for many workers under the safe harbor auto-enrollment plans introduced by PPA, and with current-law Social Security benefits, additional resources will still be needed for some of them.

NING TANG, University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School
Email: Ntang@wharton.upenn.edu
OLIVIA S. MITCHELL, University of Pennsylvania - Insurance & Risk Management Department, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Email: mitchelo@wharton.upenn.edu

Few previous studies have explored whether defined contribution retirement saving plans offer sufficiently diversified investment menus, though it is likely that these menus significantly shape workers' accumulations of retirement wealth. This paper assesses the efficiency and performance of 401(k) investment options offered by a large group of US employers. We show that most plans are efficient compared to market benchmark indexes. Three performance measures underscore the fact that these plans tend to offer a sensible investment menu, when measured in terms of the menus' mean-variance efficiency, diversification, and participant utility. The key factor contributing to plan efficiency and performance has to do with the types of funds offered, rather than the total number of investment options provided.