Review of Study on Retirement Plan Leakage

This document is about a review of a study by Quantria Strategies, LLC that attempts to estimate the effects of expanded fiduciary responsibilities on cash-outs of defined contribution (DC) plans by plan participants who separate from their job. The review points out several issues with the study's assumptions, methods, and interpretations, including implicitly assuming that upcoming regulations will eradicate all financial advice on what to do with DC plan balances upon job separation, misinterpreting a correlation as a causal effect, and misrepresenting lump sum distributions as cash-outs. The review also notes that the study's conclusions on increased cash-outs and reduced lifetime retirement resources are not well connected.