Governments are major employers, and many provide defined benefit pension plans with full inflation indexing and generous early retirement provisions. Hence, changes in thinking about, and accounting for, the costs of defined benefit pension plans have major implications for government finances....

Governments are major employers, and usually provide defined-benefit (DB) pension plans with full inflation indexing and generous early retirement provisions. Hence, changes in thinking about, and accounting for, the costs of DB pension plans have major implications for government finances. Both...