TITLE
"An Empirical Analysis of the Motives for Fully Funded Defined Benefit Plan Terminations," Journal of Insurance Issues, Cassandra R. Cole and David W. Sommer, Spring 2005, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 33-60. Full-text articles soon will be available through ABI/INFORM and EBSCO; click here for article PDF. 

ABSTRACT
Statistics gathered by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation indicate that
an average of 7,000 defined benefit plans were terminated per year between 1988 and
1997. Prior studies exploring motives for defined benefit pension plan terminations
have focused exclusively on overfunded plans. This article expands upon the previous
termination literature by examining motives for termination of fully funded defined
benefit plans. The results indicate that fully funded terminations are partially driven
by the firm’s ability to access capital. The results also suggest that motives for termination
vary depending on the size of the firm.

[Keywords: defined benefit, pensions, terminations]