February 2017

03Feb

Funding Public Pension Plans

By Jonathan Barry Forman Most state and local government employees are covered by traditional final-average-pay pension plans. State and local government employers typically fund those pension plans through a combination of employer and employee contributions, with help from investment returns on already-accumulated assets. Unlike private sector pension plans, however, public pension plans are not subject to strict minimum funding standards like those in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Public pensions also face more flexible accounting standards...

February 3, 2017
Articles, Corporate Governance, ,
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03Feb

Investment Consultants and Institutional Corruption

By Jay Youngdahl Analyses of the financial crisis of 2007-2009 and the continuing effects of a difficult investing environment have largely focused on factors such as the roles of failed and complex financial products, inadequate credit rating agencies, and ineffective government regulators. Nearly unexamined, however, is a key group of actors in the financial landscape, investment consultants. Investment consultants stand as gatekeepers between large investors, such as private and public retirement funds, and those from “Wall Street” who design and...

February 3, 2017
Articles, Corporate Governance, Investing, Regulation,
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03Feb

Micro-pensions in India: Issues and challenges

By Savita Shankar & Mukul G. Asher This article aims to fill a gap in the social security literature on India by examining the role of micro-pensions. The analysis suggests that because of the heterogeneity of the target population, micro-pension products — with microfinance institutions (MFIs) as the main, but not only sponsors — should be voluntary and portable and permit experimentation in their design and in the delivery of services. Accordingly, decentralized micro-pension schemes that operate within an appropriate...

February 3, 2017
Adequacy, Articles, Corporate Governance, Pension design,
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03Feb

The commitment value of funding pensions

By Jean Denis Garon This paper studies how funding public pensions can improve policy outcomes when short-sighted governments cannot commit. We focus on sustainable plans, where optimal nonlinear pensions are not reneged on by sequential governments. Funding pensions is a commitment mechanism. It implies lower contributions than does the second best policy, which reduces temptation to over-redistribute later and to misuse revealed private information. Funding may be preferable even if the population growth rate is higher than the rate of...

February 3, 2017
Articles, Corporate Governance, Regulation, ,
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January 2017

12Jan

The Information Content of Corporate Pension Funding Status in Japan

By Shingo Goto & Noriyoshi Yanase - This paper tests if a firm's pension funding ratio (pension assets/PBO) reveals the management's private information about the firm's operation when the firm can exercise discretion in pension funding. The lax enforcement of pension funding rules and the prevalence of management forecasts make Japanese firms an ideal testing ground. We show that, among firms with large business uncertainty, large accruals, or high effective tax rates, the pension funding ratio predicts the firm's management forecast...

January 12, 2017
Corporate Governance
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12Jan

Trusts No More: Rethinking the Regulation of Retirement Savings in the United States

By Natalya Shnitser - The regulation of private and public pension plans in the United States begins with the premise that employer-sponsored plans resemble traditional donative, or gift, trusts. Accordingly, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) famously “imports” major principles of donative trust law for the regulation of private employer-sponsored pension plans. Statutes regulating state and local government pension plans likewise routinely invoke the structure and standards applicable to donative trusts. Judges, in turn, adjudicate by analogy...

January 12, 2017
Articles, Corporate Governance, Regulation, ,
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12Jan

IDA at 65: Heading Toward Retirement or a Fragile Lease on Life? – Working Paper 246

By Todd Moss and Benjamin Leo - As the concessionary lending window of the World Bank, the International Development Association (IDA) has provided grants and low-interest loans to the world's poorest countries for over 50 years. IDA funds projects that address many of the problems associated with slower growth in developing countries related to primary education, basic health services, clean water supply and sanitation, environmental safeguards, business-climate improvements, infrastructure, and institutional reforms. However, looking to the future, IDA's operations will likely be substantially...

January 12, 2017
Corporate Governance, Labor Market, News
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