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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: paternalism, Most Recent at Top [Help]
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1. A Lesson From the Crash of 2008: The Misguided Paternalism of the Qualified Default Investment Alternative

Edward A. Zelinsky is the Morris and Annie Trachman Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University. He is the author of The Origins of the Ownership Society: How The Defined Contribution Paradigm Changed America.  In this article, Zelinsky discusses the federal government’s promotion of common stock investments for 401(k) participants. He suggests that, in light of the Crash of 2008, that promotion constitutes misguided paternalism.

Even as we contemplate the financial carnage of the Crash of 2008, the federal government sends a strong, paternalistic and, ultimately, misguided message to 401(k) participants: Invest your retirement savings in common stocks.

Congress, in the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA), directed the Secretary of Labor to promulgate regulations specifying the “default investments” to which 401(k) funds will be directed if participants fail to make their own investment choices. Under the regulations issued by the Secretary of Labor, a plan fiduciary obtains immunity from liability for a participant’s investment decisions only if the plan’s default investment constitutes a “qualified default investment alternative.” Among other requirements, a qualified default investment alternative must satisfy one of three mandatory patterns: a “life-cycle” pattern under which “a mix of equity and fixed income” investments changes for the individual participant as the participant ages, a “balanced” portfolio under which each participant has the same “mix of equity and fixed income” investments “consistent with a target level of risk appropriate for participants of the plan as a whole,” or a “managed account” under which an investment manager allocates a particular participant’s account to “a mix of equity and fixed income” assets.

When one cuts through the bureaucratic verbiage, a strong message emerges: 401(k) funds, particularly the funds of younger participants, should be invested in common stocks.

At one level, the PPA and the DOL regulations which implement it reflect a plausible investment theory, namely, that common stocks, for the long run, do better than do more conservative investments. The PPA and the DOL regulations also respond, in light of this theory, to two accurate perceptions about the 401(k) world: First, unless participants direct otherwise, 401(k) plans have historically placed participants’ resources into conservative, low-yield investments like money market funds. Second, 401(k) participants often fail to diversify their holdings out of these conservative default investments.

Hence, the PPA and the DOL regulations channel 401(k) funds toward common stocks by effectively requiring that at least part of passive participants’ accounts be invested in such stocks.

Surveying the wreckage of the Crash of 2008, this looks like misguided paternalism. Many investors who buy common stocks in the current bearish environment are likely do well in the long run. But, as they say, past performance is no guarantee of future success. And some, particularly smaller investors, may sincerely and (from today’s perspective) rationally prefer to avoid the volatility associated with common stocks.

There is, as we have just seen, a reason that the extra projected profit associated with common stocks is labeled a “risk premium.” The passive 401(k) participant who leaves his funds in conservative, low-yield investments looks more reasonable today than he did when Congress passed the PPA in the bull market of 2006.

A defender of the PPA and the DOL regulations could retort that they do not require participants to invest in common stocks, but merely send 401(k) funds to equity investments unless the participants direct otherwise. True. But the PPA and the DOL regulations nevertheless reflect a father-knows-best attitude, taking it as the federal government’s responsibility to privilege its preferred approach to investing and enshrining that stock-based approach in the law.

Before the Crash of 2008, such paternalism looked plausible. At an as yet unknown date in the future, such paternalism may look plausible again. Today, it looks misguided.

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6 Comments on A Lesson From the Crash of 2008: The Misguided Paternalism of the Qualified Default Investment Alternative, last added: 10/21/2008
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