Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Our Retirement In Their Hands: A User Perspective, Cotinne Cortese, David Aylward, John Glynn

John J Glynn

This research reports on the results of a survey of Australian retirees which provide information on attitudes surrounding financial planning advice before, at or after retirement. These results demonstrate that, despite government initiatives aimed at enhancing consumer confidence in the financial services market, most retirees continue to feel dissatisfied with, and lack confidence in, the services provided by their financial advisors. This suggests an increased role for financial planners to provide not only the additional information required under government policy, but also to provide information that is understandable and useful to the retirees that rely on it.

Retirement System Characteristics And Compensating Wage Differentials In The Public Sector, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

This paper presents evidence that a trade-off exists between wages and certain characteristics of retirement systems in the public sector. Cross-section econometric estimates for uniformed municipal employees, based upon data from two national surveys of municipalities, suggest that, other things equal, an increase in the contribution made by uniformed employees to their retirement system leads to a compensating increase in their salaries, while retirement systems with more "generous" characteristics are associated to some extent with lower salaries. The estimates also indicate that the extent of retirement system underfunding is related to employers' and employees' perceptions of the probability that promised …

Upjohn Institute Policy Paper: Public Pension Crisis And Investment Risk Taking: Underfunding, Fiscal Constraints, Public Accounting, And Policy Implications, Nancy Mohan, Ting Zhang

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

Public pension funds that cover retirement benefits for almost 20 million active or retired employees have been significantly underfunded. An important, though largely overlooked, issue related to pension underfunding is the excessive investment risk levels assumed by public plans. Our analysis suggests government accounting standards strongly affect public fund investment risk, as higher return assumptions (used to discount pension liabilities) are associated with higher investment risk.

Public funds undertake more risk if they are underfunded and have lower investment returns in previous years, consistent with the risk transfer hypothesis. Furthermore, pension funds in states facing fiscal constraints allocate more assets …