Search

This report finds that public pensions play an outsized role in the retirement security of every major demographic group in California, with the strongest impact on women and people of color. It is also a powerful tool for reducing wealth inequality. As private pension coverage declines, public pensions remain a critical bulwark of middle-class retirement security alongside Social Security, particularly for marginalized communities who have been historically shut out of other wealth-building opportunities.

This paper aims to analyze the financial performance of Romania's National Public Pension House (CNPP) and evaluate the role of internal audit in public financial management. Public institutions, such as the CNPP, manage substantial financial resources derived from taxes, fees, and non-refundable sources like the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). These funds are essential for providing public services, including pensions and social security benefits. Effective management and oversight of these resources are crucial for ensuring transparency, efficiency, and accountability. The study employs a quantitative analysis of financial indicators over the past five years, focusing on trends and the impact of internal managerial control deficiencies on the institution's financial performance. By using linear regression models, the research examines key performance metrics such as Working Capital, Working Capital Requirement, and Net Treasury. The findings reveal fluctuating trends influenced by the pandemic and other socioeconomic factors, highlighting the importance of robust internal controls and audits. Additionally, the study underscores the significance of internal audit functions in enhancing governance, identifying risks, and ensuring compliance with regulations. These mechanisms are critical for maintaining financial stability, optimizing resource management, and supporting strategic decision-making. The insights gained from this analysis provide valuable recommendations for policymakers and public administration officials to strengthen internal audit practices and improve financial management within public entities. The research concludes that regular audits and rigorous internal controls are essential for sustaining the financial health and operational efficiency of institutions like the CNPP, ultimately ensuring the reliability of pension payments and other financial obligations

The aging of society is one of the most important trends shaping the social, economic and political life of the 21st century. However, with the increasing number of people of retirement age, the problem of ensuring adequate conditions for a longer life arises. The state influences these conditions through the pension security system, including taxation of pensions. The paper attempts to answer the question whether taxation of remunerations and public pension benefits may have a significant impact on making decisions about choosing a country of work in the common market. For this purpose, Member States have been ranked in terms of two dimensions—the conditions of taxation of wages and the conditions of taxation of retirement benefits. The countries were classified using a multi-criteria comparative analysis and the agglomeration method. The study shows that taxing salaries and pension benefits is of marginal importance from the point of view of an employee’s decision-making. The main factors are the average expenditure on net salaries and the average expenditure on net pension benefits.

Asset managers – financial institutions like BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard – manage trillions of dollars of US household financial assets, including public pension funds at the federal, state, and municipal level. The structural power of asset managers means they play a decisive role in corporate decision-making, while the conflicts of interest inherent in their business model and a short-term interpretation of their fiduciary duties means they do not serve the actual interests of their economic beneficiaries in a sustainable economy. I propose establishing a public asset manager in the United States to serve as the asset manager for public pension funds. This article situates this proposed institutional reform in the broader evolution of asset manager capitalism and explains how establishing a public asset manager is an institutional reform that would shift the financial system toward serving the actual interests of the people and social systems on which it depends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pension participation during self-employment is receiving increasing attention in aging populations. The self-employed are known to participate in pension insurances to a lesser degree than employees. As a result, fears abound that they run an increased risk of old-age poverty, now that life expectancies increase. This article adopts the life-course perspective to shed new light on this topic. The life-course perspective underlines that, for many, self-employment is only a phase in a working career that is otherwise spent as an employee. Micro-level data from Finland and Germany are analyzed. These two countries have very different pension regulations for the self-employed: Finland has wide mandatory coverage, whereas Germany has a fragmented system with low mandatory coverage. Findings show that during self-employment, the Finns have much higher participation rates in both the public and private pension pillars. However, when pension-pillar participation throughout the entire working career is considered, the picture changes considerably. From this perspective, the self-employed in both countries have very high participation rates in the public pension pillar, and Germany also shows a considerable increase in occupational pillar participation. The findings suggest that the self-employed should not be treated as a distinctive social group. Rather, self-employment should be viewed as a phase during a person’s working careers. Accordingly, policymakers seeking to improve the pension participation of the self-employed might benefit from focusing on how employment and self-employment can best be combined across working careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief examines pension benefits for public servants in Sonoma County in terms of their role in employee compensation, the evolving financial status of pension systems, the impact of pension reform on costs, and how different pension systems in the county and surrounding Bay Area region stack up against each other in terms of protection from inflation during retirement.

The question to what extent voters punish governments for cutting the welfare state is an unsettled issue in social policy research. Our contribution addresses this shortcoming by systematically analyzing how media reporting about legislative changes to the welfare state affects the public agenda and citizens' vote intentions while controlling for the influence of actual cutbacks and expansions. In our analysis we examine the case of Germany from 1994 to 2014; a period where major cutbacks but also significant expansions to the German welfare state occurred. We find that mass media reporting about pension cutbacks is associated with a drop in government approval, whereas the reaction to expansive legislative changes is muted. We also find that the relationship of media reporting and government approval strongly depends on who is in government with the social democrats being punished harder than the Christian democrats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the financial performance of Romania's National Public Pension House (CNPP) and evaluate the role of internal audit in public financial management. Public institutions, such as the CNPP, manage substantial financial resources derived from taxes, fees, and non-refundable sources like the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). These funds are essential for providing public services, including pensions and social security benefits. Effective management and oversight of these resources are crucial for ensuring transparency, efficiency, and accountability. The study employs a quantitative analysis of financial indicators over the past five years, focusing on trends and the impact of internal managerial control deficiencies on the institution's financial performance. By using linear regression models, the research examines key performance metrics such as Working Capital, Working Capital Requirement, and Net Treasury. The findings reveal fluctuating trends influenced by the pandemic and other socioeconomic factors, highlighting the importance of robust internal controls and audits. Additionally, the study underscores the significance of internal audit functions in enhancing governance, identifying risks, and ensuring compliance with regulations. These mechanisms are critical for maintaining financial stability, optimizing resource management, and supporting strategic decision-making. The insights gained from this analysis provide valuable recommendations for policymakers and public administration officials to strengthen internal audit practices and improve financial management within public entities. The research concludes that regular audits and rigorous internal controls are essential for sustaining the financial health and operational efficiency of institutions like the CNPP, ultimately ensuring the reliability of pension payments and other financial obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a possible decline in public pension benefits, private savings will become critical for maintaining desired living standards, yet most people undersave. We focus on one of the possible explanations for this: trust in the state. Using data from a dedicated survey and applying structural equation modeling, this study demonstrates that Polish citizens cherish the unconditional, albeit subconscious, belief in the state as a potential rescuer of last resort in life-threatening situations. This trust plays an essential role in people's propensity to save for the future. We discuss potential explanations of this phenomenon and its consequences for social policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since increases in public pensions are generally related to prices or wages or combinations of them, the impact of inflation on the real value of benefits can often be neglected, especially in the case of indexation to prices. With high and accelerating/ decelerating inflation like that currently prevailing in Hungary, however, this is not the case. (i) With fast inflation of basic necessities, the proportional indexation of benefits in progress devalues the lowest benefits, which have to pay for above-the-average consumption share of these goods. (ii) Annual “lumpy” increases of these benefits entail too high an intra-year drop in the real value of benefits. (iii) With accelerating inflation, the declining real value of delayed initial benefits may incentivise immediate retirement. (iv) With unindexed parameter values (like progressivity bending points), the initial benefits’ structure unintentionally changes.

Socioeconomic consequences of pension reforms have often been discussed without careful consideration of institutional contexts, despite the fact that institutional designs of public pensions differ substantially across countries. This study argues that the outcomes of pension reforms vary depending on the institutional structure of public pensions, by showing that the associations between public pension spending and old-age employment rates of different socio-demographic groups vary across different institutional contexts. Using time-series cross-section data from 20 European countries and the United States from 1998 to 2019, the study examines how changes in public pension spending 'per older person', a comparable measure for the welfare state effort towards old-age income security, are associated with gender- and education-specific employment rates in old age. The study also explores how these associations differ under different pension regimes, constructed based on the degree to which financing and benefit structures exhibit redistributive orientations. The results reveal complex gender and educational gradients in the relationship between public pension spending and old-age employment. Female employment rates, especially among the low-educated, are more sensitive to changes in pension spending in the 'Beveridgean' regime that focuses on basic income security. In the Bismarckian regime characterized by earnings-related pensions, educational differences in the marginal effects on male employment rates are, in particular, larger. Future pension reforms balancing the goal of activation and social equity should therefore consider the longstanding institutional design of public pensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since increases in public pensions are generally related to prices or wages or combinations of them, the impact of inflation on the real value of benefits can often be neglected, especially in the case of indexation to prices. With high and accelerating/ decelerating inflation like that currently prevailing in Hungary, however, this is not the case. (i) With fast inflation of basic necessities, the proportional indexation of benefits in progress devalues the lowest benefits, which have to pay for above-the-average consumption share of these goods. (ii) Annual "lumpy" increases of these benefits entail too high an intra-year drop in the real value of benefits. (iii) With accelerating inflation, the declining real value of delayed initial benefits may incentivise immediate retirement. (iv) With unindexedparameter values (like progressivity bending points), the initial benefits 'structure unintentionally changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Derecho de la Seguridad Social, Laborum is the property of Ediciones Laborum S.L. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This brief is intended to help policymakers and the public better understand the financial standing of Marin County’s public pension systems, the role of legacy liabilities vs. ongoing benefit accrual in employer pension costs, and the current trajectory of these costs.

This brief examines the economic value of DB pensions—which provide secure monthly retirement income based on salary and years of service—for public employees, employers, and residents in Marin County.

This brief examines the economic value of defined benefit pensions—which provide secure monthly retirement income based on salary and years of service—for public employees, employers, and residents in Marin County.

Background and Objectives Globally aging populations raise worldwide concerns about how an older population will be valued. Cross-culturally, many espouse that Eastern cultures revere their older adults more than Westerners, due to stronger collectivism and filial piety traditions. In contrast, this paper proposes a resource tension hypothesis, whereby rapid population aging causes pragmatic strain across all modernized societies, fostering ageism. Research Design and Methods Three studies supported this resource tension hypothesis, focusing on the pragmatic role of public pensions—a fundamental resource inherently pitting older versus younger generations—in fostering ageism. Study 1 tested the relationship between nation-level public pension rate and attitudes toward older adults by using World Values Survey and European Social Survey data sets. Study 2 further explored this relationship via priming both the pension-based resource scarcity and the intergenerational competition over the public pension. Study 3 offered an intervention—future-self-thinking via a photo ager—on reducing intergenerational tensions under pension scarcity conditions. Results Study 1 found a significant link between nation-level public pension rate and negative older adult attitudes across 39,700 World Values Survey, and 29,797 European Social Survey data points. Study 2 further supported the pension-ageism link via experimental methods. Participants who were reminded of the scarcity of pensions and intergenerational competition exhibited more negative attitudes toward older adults. Study 3 confirmed the effect of the future-self intervention on enhancing attitudes toward older adults even despite scarce pension resources. Discussion and Implications The findings support a resource explanation in driving perceptions of older adults, implicate pensions as a key mechanism driving intergenerational attitudes, and identify future-self thinking as a critical intervention. The present studies open up new research pathways for understanding and accommodating the globally aging population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2008 financial crisis had profound impacts on government finances across the United States, including a lasting decrease in public pension funding levels. Today state and local governments in the United States have trillions of dollars in unfunded public pension liabilities, and the financial condition of pension systems has material impacts on borrowing costs, service delivery, and taxation, as well as retirement security. Local governments have been tasked with shoring up their pension systems while also grappling with sluggish revenue recovery, a situation that compounds already existing fiscal issues. Building on extant scholarship on crisis, austerity urbanism, and pragmatic municipalism, we examine the practice of "shorting" pension systems among Illinois municipalities and a state law meant to strengthen the fiscal health of local pension systems by curbing that practice. Using the case of the City of Harvey, a suburb of Chicago, we show how municipal finance and seemingly neutral policies aimed at ensuring fiscal health can trigger austerity actions that deepen fiscal stress for racialized communities. By examining Illinois' pension fund landscape and proposing avenues for further research, we contribute to larger conversations about how governance, property, and pensions are inextricably intertwined with persistent racial inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper estimates the aggregate effects of government income transfers shocks for a sample of EU countries. I construct a new measure of transfers shocks based on a dataset by public finance experts of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB). The identification strategy consists of a narrative analysis of policy actions in old age pensions reported in the ESCB dataset. I find that increases in old age pensions have a positive impact on aggregate expenditure components and employment consistent with a multiplier effect between 0 and 1.

This paper estimates the aggregate effects of government income transfers shocks for a sample of EU countries. I construct a new measure of transfers shocks based on a dataset by public finance experts of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB). The identification strategy consists of a narrative analysis of policy actions in old age pensions reported in the ESCB dataset. I find that increases in old age pensions have a positive impact on aggregate expenditure components and employment consistent with a multiplier effect between 0 and 1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we determine whether most teachers working in classrooms today can expect to work long enough in the same state to accrue higher benefits under their existing traditional pension, which provides monthly income based on age and service, than they would under a 401(k)-type savings plan of equal cost.

Copyright of Journal of Chengdu University (Social Science) is the property of Journal of Chengdu University (Social Science Edition) Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Many OECD countries have addressed the issue of increased longevity by mainly increasing the retirement age. However, this kind of reforms may lead to substantial transfers from those with shorter lifespans to those that will live longer than the average, as they do not necessarily take into account the socio-economic differences in mortality. The contribution of our paper is therefore twofold. Firstly, we illustrate how both a Defined Benefit and a Notional Defined Contribution pay-as-you-go scheme can put the lower social economic classes at a disadvantage, when compared to the actuarially fair pensions. In contrast to that, higher classes experience a gain. This is due to the fact that mortality rates per socio-economic class are not considered by either scheme. Consequently, we propose a model that determines the parameters for each scheme and class which would render the pensions fairer even when no socio-economic mortality differences are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this report, we present data for the state of California on the union advantage in wages and employer-sponsored health and retirement benefits for women, workers of color, and immigrants.

The results of our analysis indicate that the current Kentucky TRS pension is better matched to meet the retirement needs of the teaching workforce than a 401(k)-style plan.

This paper estimates how public pensions affect retirement timing by examining the Railroad Retirement Act of 1937, which replaced private railroad pensions with a national program comparable in many ways to Social Security. Leveraging linked decennial census records between 1910-1940, the first part of the analysis compares male labor force nonparticipation in 1940 relative to 1930, between workers previously in railroad versus other industries with broad pension coverage, and by age. Higher benefits led to earlier retirement, largely driven by exit at age 65. The second part of my analysis also exploits the switch from flat to progressive benefits in average wages to estimate the elasticity of nonparticipation with respect to benefits for men aged 65-69. My central estimate of 0.55 indicates a large retirement response. Application of these estimates to Social Security expansions in the 1950s suggests rising benefits was the key driver of earlier retirement among the already-insured male population during this era.

Faced with the need to adjust public pension systems to meet changing demographic, economic and social conditions, most developed countries have created government reserve funds to ensure macroeconomic sustainability. This paper aims to study the importance that this reserve fund plays in the sustainability of the Spanish public pension system. Using data for the 2000 to 2019 period (20 observations) on the main variables impacting on the system, we calculate probabilities and other indicators of its unsustainability in relation to the reserve fund. Our model accurately reflects certain aspects of the data, and suggests that the probability of unsustainability is inversely associated with the size of the reserve fund, but that this relation is moderated by the heterogeneity of the members of the pension system. Moreover, the probability of unsustainability increases in line with the pension system deficit, the time elapsed until unsustainability is reached is shorter when the Reserve Fund balance falls, and the size of this fund at which the system becomes unsustainable diminishes with the probability of unsustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Berkeley Blog post. Traditional pensions attract recruits to the profession and keep experienced teachers in the classroom. Doing away with pensions would increase teacher attrition and, worse, severely diminish their retirement security.

This blog post is the second in a two-part series explaining why recent studies claiming that teachers are better off with 401(k)s than pensions because of distributional issues and lower benefits for early leavers are misleading in their representation of the teaching workforce, and in how they compare retirement benefits.

This blog post is the first in a two-part series addressing key problems with studies advocating that teacher pensions be replaced with 401(k)s.

This paper analyses the impact of public pension expenditures and pension funds' assets as well as its paid‐out benefits on macroeconomic volatility. We use panel data for 35 OECD countries for the period 1980–2018 and apply a set of state‐of‐the‐art econometric estimators. Our results suggest a smoothing effect of public pension expenditures on per capita consumption growth volatility and overall macroeconomic volatility. We however do not find such effects coming from pension funds' paid‐out benefits. In contrast, the effect of pension funds' assets depends crucially on the level of economic development: there is a dampening effect on per capita investment growth volatility in less developed countries; while a volatility‐boosting effect in most developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An aging population and the economic crisis have placed pay‐as‐you‐go pension systems in need of mechanisms to ensure their financial stability. In this article, we consider optimal indexing of pensions as an instrument to cope with the financial imbalances typically found in these systems. Using dynamic programming techniques in a stochastic continuous‐time framework, we compute the optimal pension index and portfolio strategy that best target indexing and liquidity objectives determined by the government. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A subversive line of new scholarship in American politics argues that interest groups need to be brought to the analytic center of the field once again. This paper attempts to further that agenda. We reconnect with an older literature of great importance—on capture, subgovernments, and interest group liberalism—to study interest groups as insiders that play routine, officially recognized roles as part of government itself. Our empirical focus is on staterun public pension boards: which control trillions of dollars, have vast fiscal and social consequences, and are commonly designed to give public employees and their unions official roles in governing their own pension systems. We develop a theory arguing—contrary to existing scholarly work—that these groups can actually be expected to favor policies that undermine the fiscal integrity of these plans. Through an analysis of key decisions by 99 pension boards over the period 2001-2014, we show that this is in fact the case—and that, for public-sector pensions, these “interest groups on the inside” wield genuine influence that weakens effective government.

Early career turnover is a serious policy concern for public education — but is it the sole basis on which to evaluate the suitability of teacher retirement benefits? Absolutely not. Our study confirms that most teachers working in California schools today are here for the long-haul, and are better off with a DB pension than with a 401(k)-type plan.

Pensions form a significant part of public school teacher compensation, and provide the primary source of retirement security for teachers, many of whom are not included in Social Security.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the impact of the monetary transfers made by the State on the local and rural economies, taking the region of La Araucanía as an example. Based on the importance of these resources in the local economy and in the families, it invites the State to encourage economics circuits based on the principles of the Social and Solidarity Economy, surpassing the mere assistance that exists today.

Public pension systems in Latin America have historically suffered from low coverage, with a relatively small percentage of the labor force eligible for benefits in retirement. In recent years, many governments have implemented reforms aimed at expanding the percentage of citizens who are eligible for benefits. In this paper we classify and evaluate pension reforms in four Latin American countries, focusing specifically on policies aimed at expanding coverage among the large share of Latin Americans who operate as self‐employed workers. The reforms that we examine range from those linked to simplified tax regimes to those that provide pension‐specific subsidies. With the exception of a 2006 reform in Costa Rica that subsidized pension contributions at progressive rates, we find no evidence that any of these reforms increased coverage. Our results highlight the opportunity costs to low‐income workers of paying into the system, which include forgoing eligibility for less generous, non‐contributory pensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an analysis of 31 defined benefit police and fire pension plans of 20 municipalities in Florida. The authors conducted a similar assessment of these same plans ten years earlier to determine the fiscal impact of these plans due to state mandates that accompany state funding for each of these plans. The current study analyzes key measures of fiscal health over the last ten years for these same plans to ascertain whether the fiscal condition of these plans remained constant, that is, whether underfunded plans continued to be questionably managed and whether well-funded plans continued to be fiscally stable considering economic trends and the lessening of state mandates on the use of state funding for these plans. The findings show that the overwhelming majority of the plans neither significantly changed their financial condition nor their general ranking among the plans evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic role of elderly people is underestimated in the context of the debate on pension reforms. This is because, as healthy life expectancy increases, the elderly become more active not only in the labor market but also in household production. Using a three-period overlapping-generations model in which grandparents allocate time between labor and informal childcare ("grandparenting"), we analyze the interaction among grandparenting, fertility, elderly labor, and public pensions. We obtain two analytical results. First, increasing the pension contribution rate increases grandparenting. Second, elderly labor force participation rates are negatively (positively) related to the fertility rates among countries with small (large) public pensions. The nonlinear relationship between elderly labor and fertility is empirically supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with the need to adjust public pension systems to meet changing demographic, economic and social conditions, most developed countries have created government reserve funds to ensure macroeconomic sustainability. This paper aims to study the importance that this reserve fund plays in the sustainability of the Spanish public pension system. Using data for the 2000 to 2019 period (20 observations) on the main variables impacting on the system, we calculate probabilities and other indicators of its unsustainability in relation to the reserve fund. Our model accurately reflects certain aspects of the data, and suggests that the probability of unsustainability is inversely associated with the size of the reserve fund, but that this relation is moderated by the heterogeneity of the members of the pension system. Moreover, the probability of unsustainability increases in line with the pension system deficit, the time elapsed until unsustainability is reached is shorter when the Reserve Fund balance falls, and the size of this fund at which the system becomes unsustainable diminishes with the probability of unsustainability.

The year 1999 marked the beginning of reforms in social insurance in Poland. Changes which were implemented then regarded mainly retirement insurance. Until the reform was introduced, the retirement insurance had operated under a pay-as-you-go system. However, political changes in Poland, as well as adverse demographic trends, led to ineffective functioning of the existing system of financing liabilities arising from retirement insurance. It was necessary to introduce changes that, above all, would allow for maintaining an appropriate level of retirement pension. The following article concentrates on one selected aspect of this insurance - Open Pension Funds (in Polish: Otwarte Fundusze Emerytalne; OFEs) and presents major changes occurring in 2002-2018, their reasons and effects. The analysis is mainly based on data from the Financial Supervision Authority and the Social Insurance Institution.

This paper reviews Ecuador's population structure and labor market dynamics with a focus on the causes of inequality, particularly among older adults receiving contributory pensions. This serves as a basis for characterizing the main restrictions that the Ecuadorian pension system must address. This analysis is valuable for three key reasons. First, the population structure of many less developed countries is converging toward that of developed countries, with older age groups increasing in proportion. Second, Ecuador is among the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean with the highest degree of informality in the labor market, which lowers the coverage of contributory pension schemes. Third, regarding gender inequality, the rate of women's labor participation in 2010 was among the lowest in South America. The findings suggest that a younger population structure will not be the main solution to financial problems and the pension inadequacy that are facing most pension systems worldwide. Improvements in labor market institutions are required to increase the pension system's insurance. The study concludes by discussing several proposals aimed at increasing pension coverage and reducing inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, a growing number of capital market professionals have projected a low-return environment in US investment portfolios – where returns in most asset classes are expected to drop below historical rates. While these specific forecasts may not fully materialize, it is natural for cyclical investment markets to go through extended periods of lower returns, creating significant risks for public pension systems which rely on investment returns to sustain their long-term solvency and offset budgetary contributions. This paper uses a simulation method to examine the long-term effect of a low-return environment on the unfunded liabilities and contribution costs of US public pension systems while considering the moderating effects of asset allocation strategies, amortization approaches, and contribution policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]