Not How Much But How? The Ethics of Cash Balance Pension Conversions
PRIVATE RETIREMENT SECURITY: SOCIAL AND ETHNICAL ISSUES, Robert Kolb, ed., Blackwell, 2008
Posted: 20 Jan 2009
Date Written: 2008
Abstract
This paper explores the ethical issues arising from the conversion to cash balance pension plans in medium and large U.S. corporations. The conventional critique of these controversial plans centers on fundamental questions of distributive justice and rests on arguments dating back to the formulation of U.S. pension law. Since that time, however, the conditions which gave rise to these arguments have changed. Absent a persuasive argument concerning the distributional patterns of cash balance plans, we address them as a question of organizational ethics. Integrating insights from stakeholder theory, integrative social contracts theory, and empirical research on these conversions, we advance a critique of cash balance plan conversions based on common procedural approaches to these conversions.
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