Resumen de Pension Contributions and Firm Performance: Evidence from Frozen Defined Benefit Plans

Hieu V. Phan, Shantaram P. Hegde

• We study the impact of freezing defined benefit (DB) pension plans and replacing them with defined contribution (DC) plans on liquidity, financial leverage, investment, and market value of a sample of firms over 2001-2008. We find evidence that the pension freeze tends to attenuate the drain on corporate liquidity and relieve the pressure to borrow to pay for mandatory contributions (MCs) associated with underfunded DB plans. Although investors seem to favor the pension freeze as evidenced by positive announcement abnormal stock returns, there is little reliable evidence that the freeze increases investment efficiency and long-term stock performance.