Over the past 20 years we have witnessed both the greatest bull market of all time and one of the most devastating crashes in history. During this period, pension funds posted returns of more than double those realized by individual investors, while being exposed to less than half of the risk and volatility individual investors were forced to endure.

Pension funds are big business. They are important to employers, employees, governments, and society at large. With the increasing concern over dwindling retirement pension fund crises, managing pension plans has never been more critical--and the pressure on those who are responsible for them has only intensified. Destined to become the classic resource on pension plan management, Managing Pension Plans explains everything you need to know for successful management of any pension plan--from how pension plans help sponsors manage their workforces to the latest in investment and risk management. With concise and practical Managing Pensions Plans is an indispensable resource for pension fund trustees, boards of directors, managers, and administrators of both public and private pension plans as well as for the money management firms, consultants, actuaries, and accountants who serve the pension fund industry. Logue and Rader, two of the world's leading experts on the subject, explain all the financial, legal, economic, accounting, and managerial issues that those who make pension fund decisions must juggle--in language that non-financial managers can understand, yet with sufficient depth to be useful to financial managers as well. The authors synthesize the latest in capital market and financial economics research to help those involved in pension management improve their decision-making in all the critical areas. In addition, the book describes in detail the responsibilities of fiduciaries, revealing how to be both a prudent fiduciary and a capable decision maker. Managing Pension Plans offers candid advice on how pension managers can improve fund performance by being more effective shareholders. As pension fund management and performance increasingly affect the success of organizations as a whole, this book will be indispensable to anyone--from fund analysts to board members-who influences pension fund decisions.

This book gives state-of-the-art guidance on how to implement investment strategy with cutting-edge practices of plan sponsors and investment managers. All aspects of fund management will be seen in a fresh light, as professionals read about current practical and theoretical twists and turns in asset allocation, risk management, and performance evaluation and implementation.

Demographic realities will soon force developed countries to find ways to pay for longer retirements for more people. In Pension Strategies in Europe and the United States, leading economists analyze topical issues in pension policy, with a focus on raising the retirement age, increasing retirement savings, and the political sustainability of reforms that will accomplish these goals. After a substantive and wide-ranging introduction by the editors that weaves together the demographic and economic strands of the story, the chapters present cutting-edge research, offering both theoretical and empirical analyses. Contributors examine such topics as the reform of key structural features of existing pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension systems, analyzing how benefits should vary with the age of retirement, labor supply elasticity after France's 1993 pension reform, and fiscal response to a demographic shock; the feasibility of PAYG reforms in the United States and the competition among state pension systems that results from labor mobility in Europe; and private, funded systems (increasingly perceived as necessary adjuncts to PAYG systems) in the UK, the US, and the Netherlands, and in terms of individual portfolio management. The editors conclude the volume with a study of recent German and UK reforms and their effects on personal savings.ContributorsTheodore C. Bergstrom, A. Lans Bovenberg, Antoine Bozio, Woojen Chung, Juan C. Conesa, Gabrielle Demange, Richard Disney, Carl Emmerson, Robert Fenge, Luisa Fuster, Carlos Garriga, Christian Gollier, John L. Hartman, Ayse Imrohoroglu, Selahattin Imrohoroglu, Thijs Knaap, Georges de Ménil, Pierre Pestieau, Eytan Sheshinski, Matthew WakefieldRobert Fenge is Senior Research Fellow at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research and Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Munich. Georges de Ménil is Professor of Economics at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris. Pierre Pestieau is Professor of Economics at the University of Liège. Fenge and Pestieau are coauthors of Social Security and Early Retirement (MIT Press, 2005).

To supplement replacement income provided by Social Security and employersponsored pension plans, individuals need to rely on their own saving and investment choices during accumulation. Once retired, they must also decide at which rate to spend their savings, with the usual dilemma between present and future consumption in mind. This Element explains how financial engineering and risk management techniques can help them in these complex decisions. First, it introduces 'retirement bonds', or retirement bond replicating portfolios, that provide stable and predictable replacement income during the decumulation period. Second, it describes investment strategies that combine the retirement bond with an efficient performanceseeking portfolio so as to reduce uncertainty over the future amount of income while offering upside potential. Finally, strategies using risk insurance techniques are proposed to secure minimum levels of replacement income while giving the possibility of reaching higher levels of income.

The purpose of 'Pension & Retirement Plan Management: A Guide for Managers and Other Fiduciaries' is to provide reliable guidance for regulatory compliance, advice on managerial strategies, and some clarity on the underlying economics and finance of pension and retirement plans.