IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/14343.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Intergenerational Transfer of Public Pension Promises

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Novy-Marx
  • Joshua D. Rauh

Abstract

The value of pension promises already made by US state governments will grow to approximately $7.9 trillion in 15 years. We study investment strategies of state pension plans and estimate the distribution of future funding outcomes. We conservatively predict a 50% chance of aggregate underfunding greater than $750 billion and a 25% chance of at least $1.75 trillion (in 2005 dollars). Adjusting for risk, the true intergenerational transfer is substantially larger. Insuring both taxpayers against funding deficits and plan participants against benefit reductions would cost almost $2 trillion today, even though governments portray state pensions as almost fully funded.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Novy-Marx & Joshua D. Rauh, 2008. "The Intergenerational Transfer of Public Pension Promises," NBER Working Papers 14343, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14343
    Note: AG AP CF PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14343.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luca Benzoni & Pierre Collin‐Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein, 2007. "Portfolio Choice over the Life‐Cycle when the Stock and Labor Markets Are Cointegrated," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(5), pages 2123-2167, October.
    2. Zvi Bodie, 1988. "Pension Fund Investment Policy," NBER Working Papers 2752, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Inkmann, Joachim & Blake, David, 2004. "Liability valuation and optimal asset allocation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 24754, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Mitchell, Olivia S & Smith, Robert S, 1994. "Pension Funding in the Public Sector," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(2), pages 278-290, May.
    5. Giertz, J. Fred & Papke, Leslie E., 2007. "Public Pension Plans: Myths and Realities for State Budgets," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 60(2), pages 305-323, June.
    6. Joshua D. Rauh, 2006. "Investment and Financing Constraints: Evidence from the Funding of Corporate Pension Plans," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 33-71, February.
    7. Deborah Lucas, 2007. "Valuing & Hedging: Defined Benefit Pension Obligations - The Role of Stocks Revisited," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2006 169, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    8. Raimond Maurer & Olivia Mitchell & Ralph Rogalla, 2008. "The Victory of Hope Over Angst? Funding, Asset Allocation and Risk Taking in German Public Sector Pension Reform," Chapters, in: Dirk Broeders & Sylvester Eiffinger & Aerdt Houben (ed.), Frontiers in Pension Finance, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Sundaresan, Suresh & Zapatero, Fernando, 1997. "Valuation, Optimal Asset Allocation and Retirement Incentives of Pension Plans," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(3), pages 631-660.
    10. Daniel Bergstresser & Mihir Desai & Joshua Rauh, 2006. "Earnings Manipulation, Pension Assumptions, and Managerial Investment Decisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(1), pages 157-195.
    11. Dirk Broeders & Sylvester Eiffinger & Aerdt Houben (ed.), 2008. "Frontiers in Pension Finance," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12976.
    12. Olivia S. Mitchell & Robert S. Smith, "undated". "Public Sector Pension Funding," Pension Research Council Working Papers 94-4, Wharton School Pension Research Council, University of Pennsylvania.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. An, Heng & Huang, Zhaodan & Zhang, Ting, 2013. "What determines corporate pension fund risk-taking strategy?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 597-613.
    2. Joshua Rauh, 2007. "Risk Shifting versus Risk Management: Investment Policy in Corporate Pension Plans," NBER Working Papers 13240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Mitchell, O.S. & Piggott, J., 2016. "Workplace-Linked Pensions for an Aging Demographic," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 865-904, Elsevier.
    4. Iqbal Owadally, 2014. "Tail risk in pension funds: an analysis using ARCH models and bilinear processes," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 301-331, August.
    5. Maurer, Raimond & Mitchell, Olivia S. & Rogalla, Ralph, 2009. "Managing contribution and capital market risk in a funded public defined benefit plan: Impact of CVaR cost constraints," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 25-34, August.
    6. Joachim Inkmann & David Blake & Zhen Shi, 2017. "Managing Financially Distressed Pension Plans In The Interest Of Beneficiaries," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 84(2), pages 539-565, June.
    7. Gang Chen & David S. T. Matkin, 2017. "Actuarial Inputs and the Valuation Of Public Pension Liabilities and Contribution Requirements: A Simulation Approach," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 68-87, March.
    8. Mohan, Nancy & Zhang, Ting, 2014. "An analysis of risk-taking behavior for public defined benefit pension plans," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 403-419.
    9. David A. Love & Paul A. Smith & David W. Wilcox, 2009. "Should risky firms offer risk-free DB pensions?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2009-20, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Romaniuk, Katarzyna, 2019. "Premiums of the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation and risk-taking by pension plans," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 301-307.
    11. Goto, Shingo & Yanase, Noriyoshi, 2021. "Pension return assumptions and shareholder-employee risk-shifting," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    12. Joshua D. Rauh & Irina Stefanescu & Stephen P. Zeldes, 2020. "Cost Saving and the Freezing of Corporate Pension Plans," NBER Working Papers 27251, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Tim V. Eaton & John R. Nofsinger & Abhishek Varma, 2014. "Institutional Investor Ownership and Corporate Pension Transparency," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 43(3), pages 603-630, September.
    14. Anantharaman, Divya & Lee, Yong Gyu, 2014. "Managerial risk taking incentives and corporate pension policy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(2), pages 328-351.
    15. Splinter, David, 2017. "State pension contributions and fiscal stress," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 65-80, January.
    16. Denise A. Jones, 2013. "Changes in the Funded Status of Retirement Plans after the Adoption of SFAS No. 158: Economic Improvement or Balance Sheet Management," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(3), pages 1099-1132, September.
    17. Douglas, Graeme & Roberts-Sklar, Matt, 2018. "What drives UK defined benefit pension funds' investment behaviour?," Bank of England working papers 757, Bank of England.
    18. Fabio C. Bagliano & Carolina Fugazza & Giovanna Nicodano, 2014. "Optimal Life-Cycle Portfolios for Heterogeneous Workers," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(6), pages 2283-2323.
    19. Ilja Boelaars & Roel Mehlkopf, 2018. "Optimal risk-sharing in pension funds when stock and labor markets are co-integrated," DNB Working Papers 595, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    20. Kusano, Masaki, 2023. "Does recognition versus disclosure of pension liabilities affect credit ratings? Evidence from Japan," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • H60 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - General
    • H68 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Forecasts of Budgets, Deficits, and Debt
    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • H74 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Borrowing

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14343. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.