MARC Record from Library of Congress

LEADER: 02783nam a22003017a 4500
001 2011655653
003 DLC
005 20110222132053.0
007 cr |||||||||||
008 110222s2010 mau sb 000 0 eng
010 $a 2011655653
040 $aDLC$cDLC
050 00 $aHB1
100 1 $aMunnell, Alicia Haydock.
245 10 $aPublic pension funding in practice$h[electronic resource] /$cAlicia H. Munnell, Jean-Pierre Aubry, Laura Quinby.
260 $aCambridge, MA :$bNational Bureau of Economic Research,$cc2010.
490 1 $aNBER working paper series ;$vworking paper 16442
538 $aSystem requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
538 $aMode of access: World Wide Web.
500 $aTitle from PDF file as viewed on 2/22/2011.
530 $aAlso available in print.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references.
520 3 $a"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. Public pension funding has recently become a front-burner policy issue in the wake of the financial crisis and given the pending retirement of large numbers of baby boomers. This paper examines the current funding of state and local pensions using a sample of 126 plans, estimating an aggregate funded ratio in 2009 of 78 percent. Projections for 2010-2013 suggest that some continued deterioration is likely. Funded status can vary significantly among plans, so the paper explores the influence of four types of factors: funding discipline, plan governance, plan characteristics, and the fiscal situation of the state. Judging the adequacy of funding requires more than just a snapshot of assets and liabilities, so the paper examines how well plans are meeting their Annual Required Contribution and what factors influence whether they make them. The paper also addresses the controversy over what discount rate to use for valuing liabilities, concluding that using a riskless rate of return could help improve funding discipline but would need to be implemented in a manageable way. Finally, the paper assesses whether plans face a near-term liquidity crisis and finds that most have assets on hand to cover benefits over the next 15-20 years. The bottom line is that, like private investors, public plans have been hit hard by the financial crisis and their full recovery is dependent on the rebound of the economy and the stock market"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
700 1 $aAubry, Jean Pierre.
700 1 $aQuinby, Laura.
710 2 $aNational Bureau of Economic Research.
830 0 $aWorking paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;$vworking paper no. 16442.
856 40 $uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w16442