Pension Funding Regulations and Actuarial Gains and Losses

Kyongsun Heo and Jinhan Pae

Australian Accounting Review, 2021, vol. 31, issue 1, 35-50

Abstract: With pervasive pension funding deficits, Korean firms have been under pressure to improve their funding levels. We examine whether firms have incentives to set obligation‐decreasing pension assumptions when they have large pension deficits (pension obligations in excess of plan assets) and when they make insufficient contributions to external pension funds. We find that firms report larger actuarial gains (or smaller actuarial losses) associated with the remeasurement of pension liabilities when their pension funding ratio (the ratio of the fair value of plan assets to defined benefit obligations) is lower and when contributions to plan assets relative to pension service costs are smaller. Next, upon the introduction of a minimum pension funding guideline, we find that the effect of the funding ratio and contributions to pension funds on actuarial gains and losses is more pronounced for firms whose funding ratios are slightly below the minimum funding ratio than it is for firms whose funding ratios exceed or fall short of the minimum by a large margin. Our results indicate that firms opportunistically exercise discretion regarding corporate pension accounting under International Financial Reporting Standards to comply with pension funding regulations, thereby reducing perceived pension deficits.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/auar.12304

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ausact:v:31:y:2021:i:1:p:35-50

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1035-6908

Access Statistics for this article

Australian Accounting Review is currently edited by Linda M. English

More articles in Australian Accounting Review from CPA Australia
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().