The recent financial crisis and historical record suggest important lessons about the design of national pension systems. First, wide fluctuation in asset returns makes it hard for well-informed savers to select a saving rate or a sensible investment strategy for DC pensions. Workers who follow...

The recent financial crisis and the historical record suggest important lessons about the design of national pension systems. First, wide fluctuations in asset returns make it hard for well-informed savers to select a saving rate or a sensible investment strategy for defined-contribution (DC)...

"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...

Many studies have documented the pervasive underfunding of public sector pension plans in the United States in recent years. The deterioration of the funded status of public pension plans coincided with severe fiscal crises that state and local governments experienced in the 2000s. This...