Most countries have separate pension plan for public sector employees. The future fiscal burden of these plans can be substantial as the government usually is the largest employer, pension promises in the public sector tend to be relatively generous, and future payments have to be paid out...

In order to arrive at a fair comparison between countries regarding the fiscal burden of their DB public sector pension plans, this paper gathers more evidence on public sector pension plans regarding the type of pension promise and quantifies the future tax burden related to these pension...

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....

The retirement puzzle -- Capitalist crisis and pension insecurity -- Reconversion and the origin of bargained plans -- Turning labor into finance capital -- Toward the 401(k) ownership society -- Conclusions