TITLE
"An Analysis of the Substitution and Supplemental Effects Between 401(k) and Other Employers' Pension Plans," Journal of Insurance Issues, Jennifer L. Wang, Spring 2002, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 24-46. Entire article in Acrobat format.

ABSTRACT
Using firm-level data from the Internal Revenue Service Form 5500, this paper provides new evidence of the substitution and supplemental effects between 401(k) plans and other employees' pension plans for longstanding firms.  By comparing employers' pension plan choices between 1985 and 1996, we trace how individual employers changed their pension offerings during this study period.  Multinomial logistic regression models were adopted to analyze the substitution and supplemental effects between 401(k) and other employers' pension plans.  The empirical results do not support the hypothesis that the new 401(k) offerings were used to replace existing defined benefit (DB) plans, but rather replaced existing other defined contribution (DC) plans or supplemental DB/other DC plans. 

[Keywords: pension, defined benefit plans, defined contribution plans, 401(k) plans, substitution effect, supplemental effect]