The market sensitivity of retirement and defined contribution pensions: Evidence from the public sector

I provide evidence that defined contribution (DC) pensions make retirement more positively correlated with stock market returns as compared to defined benefits (DB) pensions. To identify the effect, I exploit the U.S. federal government's switch in 1984 from a DB pension system (CSRS) to a hybrid-DC pension system (FERS). I estimate that FERS exposes approximately 24% more pension wealth to the financial markets. Compared to untreated employees, employees treated with the hybrid-DC pension respond to a one standard deviation shock to quarterly market returns by adjusting their retirement date by approximately one month, approximately offsetting changes in DC pension wealth with labor income. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.