September 2018

17Sep

The Crisis in Public Sector Pension Plans: A Blueprint for Reform in New Jersey

By Eileen Norcross (George Mason University - Mercatus Center) & Andrew G. Biggs (American Enterprise Institute) In this study, we consider the case of New Jersey, which operates five defined benefit pension plans for state employees. The New Jersey Senate unanimously passed legislation in February 2010 that would put a question on the November ballot to constitutionally require the state to begin to make its full annual payment to the state’s pension system. The bill requires the state to catch...

September 17, 2018
Articles, Management, Pension design, , ,
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13Sep

The world’s largest pension funds – year ended 2017

Assets under management of the world's largest pension funds totalled US$18.1 trillion in 2017. Funds increased their value by 15.1% in 2017, compared to an increase of 6.1% in 2016. Strong market returns for all major asset classes helped boost pension assets during the year. The top 20 funds experienced a higher increase than the overall ranking (17.4%), thus increasing their relative size to 41.1% of total assets. North America remained the largest region in terms of AUM, accounting for 42.3% of all...

September 13, 2018
Books, Corporate Governance, Management, Pension design, Slider-Left, ,
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July 2018

23Jul

Central States Pension Fund: Department of Labor Activities Under the Consent Decree and Federal Law

By Charles A. Jeszeck (Government Accountability Office (GAO)), David Lehrer (Government Accountability Office (GAO)), Margaret Weber, Laurel E. Beedon, Charles J Ford, Jessica Moscovitch, Layla Moughari, Joseph Silvestri, Anjali Tekchandani, Frank Todisco (Independent), Adam Wendel (Government Accountability Office (GAO)) The Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund (CSPF) was established in 1955 to provide pension benefits to trucking industry workers and is one of the largest multiemployer plans. According to its regulatory filings, CSPF had less than half the...

July 23, 2018
Articles, Labor Market, Regulation, , ,
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16Jul

The Extent and Nature of State and Local Government Pension Problems and a Solution

By Ross Marchand (Taxpayers Protection Alliance) & Mark Warshawsky (Government of the United States of America - Social Security Administration) Some states and municipalities are in difficult financial straits. Many more have severely underfunded defined benefit pension plans for their past and current employees. At the intersection of these two sets, it is likely that the pension plans are not sustainable and cuts are inevitable, including to the benefits of current retirees. But in many of these states and municipalities,...

July 16, 2018
Articles, Pension design, System Sustainability, , ,
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06Jul

Demography and Provisions for Retirement: The Pension Composition, an Equilibrium Approach

By B.M.S. van Praag (University of Amsterdam) & J. Peter Hop (University of Amsterdam) Pensions may be provided for in a modern society by several methods, viz., voluntary individual savings, mandatory fully funded occupational pension systems, and mandatory social security financed by pay-as-you-go. The specific mixture of the three systems we will call the pension composition. We assume that individual workers decide about their own individual savings, that the fully funded occupational system is decided upon by the age cohort of...

July 6, 2018
Adequacy, Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, , , , ,
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June 2018

16Jun

Public Pensions: State and Local Government Contributions to Underfunded Plans

By United States General Accounting Office (GAO)  Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the status of public pension plan funding, focusing on the basic pension plans of state and local governments. GAO found that: (1) states and localities with underfunded pension plans run the risk of reducing future pension benefits to taxpayers or raising revenues; (2) unfunded liabilities for all state and local pension plans totalled $200 billion in 1992; (3) contributions to pension funds in 1992 fell short of...

June 16, 2018
Books, Management, System Sustainability, , , ,
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April 2018

March 2018

26Mar

The Time Has Come to Revisit Solvency Funding Rules

By Norma L. Nielson (University of Calgary - Haskayne School of Business) Canadians are not fond of hearing news about people losing their hard-earned pensions because their employer misused the money. The thought of some Working Joe or Jane being deprived of a pension, after a lifetime of working for a company, is naturally repugnant. That is why regulations around defined-benefit pension plans are designed to force employers to keep their pension funds sufficiently solvent. But there are many ways...

March 26, 2018
Articles, Pension design, Regulation, ,
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February 2018

19Feb

Political Viability of Intergenerational Transfers. An Empirical Application

By Gianko Michailidis (University of Barcelona) & Concepcio Patxot (University of Barcelona - Department of Economic Theory) Public intergenerational transfers (IGTs) may arise because of the failure of private arrangements to provide optimal economic resources for the young and the old. We examine the political sustainability of the system of public IGTs by asking what the outcome would be if the decision per se to reallocate economic resources between generations was put to the vote. By exploiting the particular nature...

February 19, 2018
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, , ,
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January 2018

22Jan

The Retirement Survival Guide: How to Make Smart Financial Decisions in Good Times and Bad

By Julie Jason Given today’s dire headlines, planning a secure retirement has become a more critical task than ever. This revised edition of Julie Jason’s award-winning guide—updated to reflect current laws and statistics—will help Americans seeking safety and stability in a time of economic change. In addition to showing those on the verge of retirement how to create their own “personal pension,” investment educator Jason deftly guides prospective retirees through the otherwise bewildering process of evaluating their needs, anticipating future...

January 22, 2018
Books, Investing, Pension design, Savings, , ,
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