Download or read book The Need for Transparency in Public Sector Pensions written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This short study compares the public sector occupational pension liabilities of the three member countries of the British North America Committee (BNAC) - US, UK and Canada. It deals solely with the pension arrangements for retired Government employees. The Boards of private companies have considered the rising costs of existing defined benefit provision and decided that the benefits to their companies are often outweighed by the costs and forward liabilities involved. This paper tries to provide the taxpayers of each country with information similar to that available to private Boards, so the taxpayers (and their elected representatives) are better able to weigh up the costs and benefits, and to decide on the most appropriate public sector occupational pension provision for the future.
Download or read book Clearing the Pensions Fog written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 6 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Transparency in Government Operations written by Mr.J. D. Craig and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1998-02-03 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transparency in government operations is widely regarded as an important precondition for macroeconomic fiscal sustainability, good governance, and overall fiscal rectitude. Notably, the Interim Committee, at its April and September 1996 meetings, stressed the need for greater fiscal transparency. Prompted by these concerns, this paper represents a first attempt to address many of the aspects of transparency in government operations. It provides an overview of major issues in fiscal transparency and examines the IMF's role in promoting transparency in government operations.
Download or read book Defined Benefits Undefined Costs written by Daniel J. Kaspar and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: State governments and public pension boards have failed to provide timely and meaningful information regarding the health of their pension plans. Because stakeholders disagree on the method of valuing these pension plans, the public lacks information necessary to develop policy alternatives. Thus, it is the responsibility of the federal government to step in, as it has done with private sector pension plans. An attempt was made with the Public Employee Pension Transparency Act, though that legislation falls short because it lacks a mandate of uniformity. Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statements greatly influence state plans, but they too lack uniform standards. In this article, I propose the Uniform Pension Valuation and Reporting Act (UPVARA), which calls for mandatory uniform valuation and reporting standards. UPVARA also directs plans to report under three separate valuation assumptions, thereby decreasing the acrimonious nature of plan valuation and reporting. UPVARA is therefore a crucial step toward improving the valuation and reporting standards for state public sector pensions.
Download or read book State and Local Pension Fund Management written by Jun Peng and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2008-08-21 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intense media coverage of the public pension funding crisis continues to fuel heightened awareness in and debate over public pension benefits. With over $3 trillion in assets currently under management, the ramifications of poor oversight are severe. It is important that practitioners, researchers, and taxpayers be well-advised regarding any concer
Download or read book Unsustainable written by James MacDougald and published by The Free Enterprise Nation. This book was released on 2010-06-14 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: UNSUSTAINABLE is packed with information that is vital to every taxpaying American. It reveals shocking information that has long been hidden from the public. It exposes how governments at every level hide the pay and exorbitant pensions they provide to themselves and use accounting trickery to keep taxpayers from knowing of the enormous costs and long-term liabilities. MacDougald shows how the federal government keeps $106 trillion of debt hidden from taxpayers, and how state and local governments hide another $3 trillion. He exposes exactly how governments often trick taxpayers into agreeing to pay more and more taxes to "save schools" or "provide police protection" when the money really goes to more pay and bigger pensions. UNSUSTAINABLE details how public sector unions have become a "money pump," taking taxpayer dollars paid to public sector workers, then given as union dues, and then used for political contributions to politicians who will support the extraction of even more taxpayer dollars. The provocative and controversial book also documents and exposes the huge financial catastrophe that is about to befall Social Security, "baby boomers" and our younger workers and how it will threaten our economy for decades. UNSUSTAINABLE addresses the "jobs squeeze," detailing how the private sector lost 1.5 million jobs in the last decade even as government grew by 2 million. And it reveals how Congress passes laws that they know violate our Constitutional rights and gets away with it. It is a book that all Americans, no matter what their politics, must read.
Download or read book State and Local Pensions written by Alicia H. Munnell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012-08-27 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the wake of the financial crisis and Great Recession, the health of state and local pension plans has emerged as a front burner policy issue. Elected officials, academic experts, and the media alike have pointed to funding shortfalls with alarm, expressing concern that pension promises are unsustainable or will squeeze out other pressing government priorities. A few local governments have even filed for bankruptcy, with pensions cited as a major cause. Alicia H. Munnell draws on both her practical experience and her research to provide a broad perspective on the challenge of state and local pensions. She shows that the story is big and complicated and cannot be viewed through a narrow prism such as accounting methods or the role of unions. By examining the diversity of the public plan universe, Munnell debunks the notion that all plans are in trouble. In fact, she finds that while a few plans are basket cases, many are functioning reasonably well. Munnell's analysis concludes that the plans in serious trouble need a major overhaul. But even the relatively healthy plans face three challenges ahead: an excessive concentration of plan assets in equities; the risk that steep benefit cuts for new hires will harm workforce quality; and the constraints plans face in adjusting future benefits for current employees. Here, Munnell proposes solutions that preserve the main strengths of state and local pensions while promoting needed reforms.
Download or read book Pensions at a Glance 2019 OECD and G20 Indicators written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-27 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2019 edition of Pensions at a Glance highlights the pension reforms undertaken by OECD countries over the last two years. Moreover, two special chapters focus on non-standard work and pensions in OECD countries, take stock of different approaches to organising pensions for non-standard workers in the OECD, discuss why non-standard work raises pension issues and suggest how pension settings could be improved.
Download or read book The Impact of the 2007 08 Changes to Public Service Pensions written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-05-26 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2007-08, new pension schemes were introduced for civil servants, NHS staff and teachers, designed to make public service pensions affordable. The changes are likely to reduce costs to taxpayers of the pension schemes by £67 billion over 50 years, with costs stabilising at around 1% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or 2% of public expenditure. The Committee is concerned that the Treasury did not test the potential impact of changes in some of the key assumptions underpinning the long-term cost projections. In addition, the Treasury has not tested whether reducing the value of pensions would affect the public sector's ability to recruit and retain high quality staff. Three-fifths of the savings to the taxpayer were expected to come from the cost sharing and capping mechanism - a transfer, from employers to employees, of extra costs that arise if pensioners live longer than previously expected. Employees would potentially pay 70% more for their pensions over the next 50 years if life expectancy continues to increase more than expected. Implementation remains on hold while the Government decides how to respond to the Independent Public Service Pensions Commission (the Hutton Commission). Public service employees do not have a clear understanding of the value of their pensions because they are not provided with clear and intelligible information to enable them to make rational decisions. Further changes to public service pensions are expected as Hutton's recommendations are implemented, but this should bring a period of stability and certainty for long-term public service pensions policy.
Download or read book Pension fund governance written by Michael Orszag, John Evans, John Piggott and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2008-06-30 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'This collection of essays on a rapidly developing topic is a valuable addition to the field and the editors must be congratulated on beginning to bring the area to the attention of thinkers and government (not necessarily the same thing), who are charged with dealing with the challenge of controlling private pension provision.' - Robin Ellison, Pensions
Download or read book Republic of Uzbekistan written by International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Affairs Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2019-05-01 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Fiscal Transparency Evaluation report highlights that Uzbekistan is embarking on a comprehensive reform program to strengthen public financial management and fiscal transparency. Wide-ranging reforms to improve the coverage, reliability, quality, and accessibility of fiscal reports are being developed and implemented, and some good progress already made. This assessment of fiscal transparency practices has been undertaken to support the government’s efforts to increase transparency by identifying priority areas for reform. An evaluation of practices against the IMF’s Fiscal Transparency Code (the Code) finds that tangible gains have been made over 2017 and 2018. In several areas where Uzbekistan’s practices do not currently meet the basic standard required under the Code, quick progress can be made. The report also provides a more detailed evaluation of Uzbekistan’s fiscal transparency practices and recommended reform priorities. Strengthening legislative oversight of the state budget with a view to reducing the extent to which in-year changes can be made to aggregate expenditures without prior parliamentary approval.
Download or read book New Horizons for a Data Driven Economy written by José María Cavanillas and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-04 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book readers will find technological discussions on the existing and emerging technologies across the different stages of the big data value chain. They will learn about legal aspects of big data, the social impact, and about education needs and requirements. And they will discover the business perspective and how big data technology can be exploited to deliver value within different sectors of the economy. The book is structured in four parts: Part I “The Big Data Opportunity” explores the value potential of big data with a particular focus on the European context. It also describes the legal, business and social dimensions that need to be addressed, and briefly introduces the European Commission’s BIG project. Part II “The Big Data Value Chain” details the complete big data lifecycle from a technical point of view, ranging from data acquisition, analysis, curation and storage, to data usage and exploitation. Next, Part III “Usage and Exploitation of Big Data” illustrates the value creation possibilities of big data applications in various sectors, including industry, healthcare, finance, energy, media and public services. Finally, Part IV “A Roadmap for Big Data Research” identifies and prioritizes the cross-sectorial requirements for big data research, and outlines the most urgent and challenging technological, economic, political and societal issues for big data in Europe. This compendium summarizes more than two years of work performed by a leading group of major European research centers and industries in the context of the BIG project. It brings together research findings, forecasts and estimates related to this challenging technological context that is becoming the major axis of the new digitally transformed business environment.
Download or read book Public service pensions written by Great BritainH.M. Treasury and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-11-02 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this paper the Government sets out its preferred scheme design for public service pensions. It is built on the foundations laid by Lord Hutton in his report (Independent Public Service Pensions Commission: final report, 2011, ISBN 9780108510410). The cost of public service pensions paid out has risen by over a third over the last ten years to £32 billion a year. Reforms to date have been insufficient to reverse the increase in costs of public service schemes from rising longevity. The Government's offer is: benefits already earned are protected; for those in final salary schemes, those past benefits will be linked to their final salary when they leave the scheme or retire; public service workers with ten years or less to their current pension age, will see no change in when they can retire; Government will continue to pay more overall toward pension benefits than the workforce. The scheme design will ensure: guaranteed, index-linked pension benefits on retirement; an accrual rate of 1/60ths and earnings indexation for benefits while still working in the public service; fairer distribution of benefits across the workforce; and, that most low and middle earners working a full career will receive pension benefits at least as good as they get now. But in return, the Government is asking public service workers to pay more towards their pensions and work a bit longer. The Government's offer is conditional on the trades unions and the Government reaching agreement on the reforms.
Download or read book Pensions in the Public Sector written by Olivia S. Mitchell and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Pension Research Council of the Wharton School, this book explores the diversity of governmental pension plans and investigates how these financial institutions must change in years to come.
Download or read book Governance and Fund Management in the Chinese Pension System written by Yu-Wei Hu and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2009-11-01 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chinese pension system is highly fragmented and decentralized, with governance standards, pension fund management practices, their regulation and supervision varying considerably both across the funded components of the Chinese pension system and across provinces. This paper describes the key components of the system, highlights the progress made to date and identifies remaining weaknesses, in regard to information disclosure, the governance framework and pension fund management standards.
Download or read book The Future of Public Employee Retirement Systems written by Gary Anderson and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2009-08-13 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People covered by public pensions are often the subject of 'pension envy:' that is, their benefits might seem more generous and their contributions lower than those offered by the private sector. Yet this book points out that such judgments are often inaccurate, since civil servants hold jobs with few counterparts in private industry, such as firefighters, police, judges, and teachers. Often these are riskier, dirtier, and demand more loyalty and discretion than would be required of a more mobile labor force in the private sector. The debate challenges traditional ideas about how the public employee labor contract is structured and raises questions about how such employees are attracted to the public sector, retained and motivated on the job, and retired, via an entire compensation package of wages and benefits. Authors explore aspects of these schemes, addressing the cost and valuation debate, along with the political economy of how public pension asset pools are perceived and managed, an increasingly important topic in times of global financial turmoil. The discussion also explores ways that public pensions can be strengthened in the US, Japan, Canada, and Germany. The volume captures a vigorous debate currently underway by academics, financial experts, regulators, and plan sponsors, all seeking to define a new future for public retirement systems. It will be of substantial interest to a wide range of readers, since public sector employees and their representatives will naturally find the comparisons and arguments over valuation of keen interest. Public pension administrators and policymakers seeking an explanation of what makes these plans so costly will gain a new understanding of how the arguments stack up. Private sector employers and plan sponsors can learn much from efforts to reform these retirement systems in states and countries around the world. Finally, investors and the taxpaying public more generally may be at risk to cover these long-term promises, so it behoves them to pay close attention to the financing and investment practices of these plans, along with their valuation. This volume represents an invaluable addition to the Pension Research Council / Oxford University Press series as it includes actuarial, economic, and financial perspectives making it useful for academics, retirement plan administrators, and public employees wishing to understand the challenges facing public pensions.
Download or read book Systems Approaches to Public Sector Challenges Working with Change written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2017-08-11 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report, produced by the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, explores how systems approaches can be used in the public sector to solve complex or “wicked” problems.
