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Pensions in the U.S. Economy is the fourth in a series on pensions from the National Bureau of Economic Research. For both economists and policymakers, this volume makes a valuable contribution to current research on pensions and the economics of the elderly. The contributors report on retirement saving of individuals and the saving that results from corporate funding of pension plans, and they examine particular aspects of the plans themselves from the employee's point of view. Steven F. Venti and David A. Wise offer a careful analysis of who contributes to IRAs and why. Benjamin M. Friedman and Mark Warshawsky look at the reasons more retirement saving is not used to purchase annuities. Personal saving through pension contribution is discussed by B. Douglas Bernheim and John B. Shoven in the context of recent government and corporate pension funding changes. Michael J. Boskin and John B. Shoven analyze indicators of the economic well-being of the elderly, addressing the problem of why a large fraction of the elderly remain poor despite a general improvement in the economic status of the group as a whole. The relative merits of defined contribution versus defined benefit plans, with emphasis on the risk aspects of the two types of plans for the individual, are examined by Zvi Bodie, Alan J. Marcus, and Robert C. Merton. In the final paper, pension plans and worker turnover are the focus of the discussion by Edward P. Lazear and Robert L. Moore, who propose pension option value rather than the commonly used accrued pension wealth as a measure of pension value.
For anyone with an interest in pensions—workers and employers, personnel directors, accountants, actuaries, lawyers, insurance agents, financial analysts, government officials, and social scientists—this book is required reading. Now, without the aid of a pension specialist, anyone can determine how their particular pension plan stacks up against the average. Using virtually all available government sources (including computerized data unavailable in print) and their own extensive surveys, the authors present a comprehensive description of the structural features and financial conditions of U.S. private, state, city, and municipal pension plans. The introductions to the hundreds of tables explain and highlight the information. The picture that emerges of the "typical" plan and its significant variations is crucial to all those with a financial stake in pensions. The reader can compare pension vesting, retirement, and benefit provisions by plan type, plan size, industry, union status, and many more characteristics. With this information, workers can evaluate just how generous their employer is; job applicants can compare fringe benefits of prospective employers; personnel directors can judge their competitive edge. The financial community will find especially interesting the analysis of the unfunded liabilities of private, state, and local pension funds. The investment decisions of private and public pension funds and their return performances are described as well. Government officials and social scientists will find the analysis of pension coverage, the receipt of pension income by the elderly, cost-of-living adjustments, and disability insurance of special importance in evaluating the proper degree of public intervention in the area of old age income support. Pensions in the American Economy is comprehensive and easy to use. Every reader, from small-business owners and civil servants to pension fund specialists, will find in it essential information about this increasingly important part of labor compensation and retirement finances.
Dr. Nektarios examines the principles and criteria under lying public pension programs and assesses the effect of these programs on general economic growth. He begins by discussing the economic rationale of public pensions, then analyzes the influence of economic and demographic variables on the cost of a pension program and the effects of public pension systems on aggregate levels of income and capital stock. Suggesting that Feldstein's social security wealth(SSW) variable overestimates the amount of wealth generated by public pensions, Dr. Nektarios constructs a new SSW variable and uses it to estimate the impact of the u.s. Old Age and Survivors Insurance(OASI) program on capital formation and economic growth in the U.S. economy. The results of his econometric analysis suggest that operation of the OASI program has reduced capital formation by 10to 14 percent.
This book provides valuable information and analysis to managers, policymakers, and investment counselors in the rapidly expanding field of pension funding. American workers, too, need answers and insights on how to invest their money and plan for their retirement. fifteen of America's leading financial analysts address such pressing questions as -What is the current financial status of the elderly, and how vulnerable are they to inflation? -What is the impact of inflation on the private pension system, and what are the effects of alternative indexing schemes? -What roles can the social security system play in the provision of retirement income? -What is the effect of the tax code and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) on corporate pension policy? -How well funded are corporate pension plans, and is a firm's unfunded pension liability fully reflected in the market value of its common stock? Many of the conclusions these experts reach contradict and challenge popular views, thus providing fertile ground for innovation in pension planning.
Six papers--with additional commentary--presented at the March 1990 Wharton School Pension Research Council Spring Conference in Philadelphia. In the first five chapters, the contributors focus on the major ways in which pensions affect the US economy. The sixth chapter explores the international experience. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
This examination of the 120-year-old American system of privatized social insurance reveals that the system fails to provide adequate retirement income security, its most prominent goal, and, in fact, its greatest influence is in supplying funds to U.S. capital markets.
From the Pension Research Council of the Wharton School