Table of Contents

1: Olivia S. Mitchell: The Future of Public Employee Retirement Systems
Part I: Costs and Benefits of Public Employee Retirement Systems
2: Stephen T. McElhaney: Estimating State and Local Government Pension and Retiree Health Care Liabilities
3: Jeremy Gold and Gordon Latter: The Case for Marking Public Plan Liabilities to Market
4: M. Barton Waring: Between Scylla and Charybdis: Improving the Cost Effectiveness of Public Pension Retirement Plans
5: Parry Young: Public Pensions and State and Local Budgets: Can Contribution Rate Cyclicality Be Better Managed?
6: Ken McDonnell: Benefit Cost Comparisons Between State and Local Governments and Private Industry Employers
7: Edwin C. Hustead: Administrative Costs of State Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution Systems
8: Toni Hustead: Thinking About Funding Federal Retirement Plans
Part II: Implementing Public Retirement System Reform
9: Raimond Maurer, Olivia S. Mitchell, and Ralph Rogalla: Reforming the German Civil Servant Pension Plan
10: Silvana Pozzebon: The Outlook for Canada's Public Sector Employee Pensions
11: Junichi Sakamoto: Unifying Pension Schemes in Japan: Toward a Single Scheme for Both Civil Servants and Private Employees
12: Keith Brainard: Redefining Traditional Plans: Variations and Developments in Public Employee Retirement Plan Design
13: Roderick B. Crane, Michael Heller, and Paul J. Yakoboski: Defined Contribution Pension Plans in the Public Sector: A Benchmark Analysis
Part III: The Political Economy of Public Pensions
14: Robert L. Clark, Lee A. Craig, and Neveen Ahmed: The Evolution of Public Sector Pension Plans in the United States
15: Brad M. Barber: Pension Fund Activism: The Double-Edged Sword
16: Beth Almeida, Kelly Kenneally, and David Madland: The New Intersection on the Road to Retirement: Public Pensions, Economics, Perceptions, Politics, and Interest Groups

About the Author

Olivia S. Mitchell is the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor of Insurance and Risk Management, the Executive Director of the Pension Research Council, and the Director of the Boettner Center on Pensions and Retirement Research at the Wharton School. Concurrently Dr. Mitchell is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Co-Investigator for the AHEAD/Health and Retirement Studies at the University of Michigan.

Gary Anderson is a consultant on public pension issues; previously he served as Executive Director of the Texas Municipal Retirement system which covers municipal employees and retirees for many Texas cities. He is also an Advisory Board member of Wharton's Pension Research Council, and he served with the National Association of State Retirement Administrators and the Government Finance Officers Association.

Reviews

A timely contribution to the debate taking place in many developed countries on what pensions should be provided for employees working in the public sector.
*Bryn Davies, Journal of Aging and Society 2011*