The power of finance: accounting harmonization's effect on pension provision

Occupational defined benefit (db) pensions today are outmoded and increasingly costly corporate burdens and are now in decline. However, the transformation of db is found to be contingent on the institutional setting in which transformation occurs. In this article we offer a modest conceptualization of the interplay between global pressures for change and convergence, particularly accounting harmonization, and the local institutional environment and geography that filter these forces in the context of db pensions. We demonstrate this behavior through analyses of db transformation and decline in the uk and the netherlands.