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Author(s)

Robert Novy-Marx

Joshua Rauh

We discuss the true economic funding status of state public pension plans and show that government accounting standards require states to use procedures that severely understate their liabilities. We analyze how state pension funds reached this state of affairs, present a distribution of future outcomes, and discuss why public pension funding and investment policy matter for taxpayers.
Date Published: 2009
Citations: Novy-Marx, Robert, Joshua Rauh. 2009. The Liabilities and Risks of State-Sponsored Pension Plans. Journal of Economic Perspectives. (4)191-210.