Contribution behavior of 401(k) plan participants

This Issue Brief examines the 1999 contribution behavior of 1.7 million 401(k) plan participants drawn from the EBRI/ICI Participant-Directed Retirement Plan Data Collection Project. The findings in this paper build on previous academic research examining the contribution activity of 401(k) participants, by using a large sample of participants in a wide range of plan sizes and by examining in detail the factors that influence contribution activity. Eighty-five percent of participants in the sample only made before-tax contributions to their plans, and 97 percent of all dollars contributed by employees were contributed on a before-tax basis. On average, participants contributed 6.8 percent of their salaries on a before-tax basis. Before-tax contribution activity varied among participants. About 61 percent of participants contributed more than 5 percent of their salaries on a before-tax basis and about 21 percent set aside more than 10 percent of their salaries on a before-tax basis. Eleven percent of participants analyzed in this study earning more than $40,000 a year contributed at the $10,000 before-tax IRC limit in 1999. Thirteen percent of participants with salaries between $70,000 and $80,000 contributed at the cap, and 18 percent of those with salaries between $80,000 and $90,000 were at the limit. However, it appears that among participants not contributing at the IRC limit, 52 percent could not have done so because of formal plan-imposed contribution limits below the IRC limit. Older participants tended to contribute a higher percentage of their salaries to plans than did younger participants, even after factoring out differences in salary and job tenure. Participants tended to increase the share of their salary (and amounts) contributed to their 401(k) plan as their salaries rose until salaries reached $80,000. For individuals with salaries above $80,000, before-tax contribution rates (though not the amounts contributed) tended to fall as salaries rose because IRC, and possibly plan sponsor, contribution limits became binding for some participants. Giving employees the option of borrowing from their 401(k) accounts increased participant contribution rates. On average, a participant in a plan offering loans appeared to contribute 0.6 percentage point more of his or her salary to the plan than a participant in a plan with no loan provision. Total contributions--the sum of employee and employer contributions--were higher for participants who received an employer contribution as part of their 401(k) plan than for those who did not. The average total contribution rate was 10 percent of salary for employees in plans offering an employer contribution, compared with 7.4 percent for those in plans not offering an employer contribution.     

Civil Society Opposition to Nonferrous Metals Mining in Montana

This paper discusses the opposition of civil society to nonferrous metals mining in Montana. The mineral resources and mining history of Montana are discussed, as is the vibrant civil society of that state. Montana’s civil society has opposed mining due to its environmental effects, particularly upon areas of high conservation value. This opposition has involved litigation and the implementation of a ban on the use of cyanide by the mining industry. The paper concludes with a discussion of whether this opposition to mining has damaged the economy of the state and Montana’s future as an example of the “New West,” wherein amenities based growth act as the principal agent of economic activity.     

Exact confidence intervals generated by conditional parametric bootstrapping

Conditional parametric bootstrapping is defined as the samples obtained by performing the simulations in such a way that the estimator is kept constant and equal to the estimate obtained from the data. Order statistics of the bootstrap replicates of the parameter chosen in each simulation provide exact confidence intervals, in a probabilistic sense, in models with one parameter under quite general conditions. The method is still exact in the case of nuisance parameters when these are location and scale parameters, and the bootstrapping is based on keeping the maximum-likelihood estimates constant. The method is also exact if there exists a sufficient statistic for the nuisance parameters and if the simulations are performed conditioning on this statistic. The technique may also be used to construct prediction intervals. These are generally not exact, but are likely to be good approximations.     

Testing the Normality Assumption in the Tobit Model

This paper examines a number of statistics that have been proposed to test the normality assumption in the tobit (censored regression) model. It argues that a number of commonly proposed statistics can be interpreted as different versions of the Lagrange multiplier, or score, test for a common null hypothesis. This observation is useful in examining the Monte Carlo results presented in the paper. The Monte Carlo results suggest that the computational convenience of a number of statistics is obtained at the cost of poor finite sample performance under the null hypothesis.     

Modernization Among Town and Bush Cree in Quebec*

L'article est base sur des donnees recueillies aupres des Indiens Cris des regions de Mistassini et de Waswanipi dans le Quebec. La these principale qui y est elaboree peut s'exprimer ainsi: la structure de role d'individus vivant dans des milieux en voie de developpement evoluera a partir d'un nombre restreint de roles traditionnels vers une structure plus complexe oil on observe une meilleure tenue de role. L'auteur elabore une echelle de modernisation: les individus les plus modernes se reconnaissent a leur scolarite, a leur milieu de residence, a leurs fonctions professionnelles et aux changements dans leurs attitudes et conceptions de l'avenir. En consequence, si on veut moderniser ces reserves, il faut susciter des changements a chacun de ces cinq niveaux de la realite sociale. This article takes data gathered on the Cree Indians in the Mistassini and Waswanipi areas of Quebec and analyses it in terms of their role structure. The principal thesis is that the role structure of people who are developing will change from a traditionally limited number of roles to a more complex structure with a higher degree of role performance. A scale of modernization is developed and is found to be associated with education, location of residence, occupational roles, and with changes in attitudes and orientation. Therefore, to bring about modernization would require changes in at least these five areas.     

Real life learning. Alternative to clinical skills development

1. Pressure from educational institutions on clinical facilities necessitates the creation of alternative strategies that enable students to develop clinical skills outside the artificial atmosphere of a nursing laboratory or the formal clinical setting. 2. Assignments covering grief and loss experienced by the elderly; problems in performing activities of daily living experienced by the non-elderly; and existential anxieties experienced by the elderly help students to realize that such problems are not confined to those residing in institutional settings. 3. Each of these assignments sensitizes students to the practical reality of a variety of theoretical frameworks, which provides students with the opportunity of applying theory to practice in a nonthreatening environment.