Defined Benefit (DB) state pension trust funds are an integral component of state finances and play a major role in the country’s labor and capital markets. The last decade though has seen a substantial growth in unfunded pension obligations and a seeming inability by states to make the contributions needed to cover funding shortfalls. When coupled with even larger unfunded retirement health benefits, the looming threat of insolvent state retirement systems pose both current and long-term fiscal challenges to state governments already struggling with the ongoing economic downturn and billions of dollars in budget deficits. The convergence of these factors have led states to undertake various reform strategies in an attempt to move their respective public pension plans towards a more sustainable funding path. Using an asset-liability framework to describe the DB plan funding structure and process, this dissertation advances the discussion over major pension reform efforts currently implemented or considered by states. I show analytically the link between various pension reform categories and specific DB plan funding components, and how this in turn, affects DB plan funding outcomes. From this analytical framework, I derive the study’s hypotheses on the relationship between DB plan reform-linked funding components and outcomes of interest. This study looks at three DB-plan reform-linked funding components: (1) plan member employee contributions, (2) plan employer contributions, and (3) retirement benefit payments. Four major funding outcomes are evaluated: (1) the employer contribution rate, (2) flow funding ratio, and (3) stock funding ratio, and (4) relative size of plan unfunded liability. Utilizing a unique panel dataset of 100 DB state retirement systems from 50 states covering a nine-year period of FY 2002 to 2010, I empirically test the following hypothesized funding relationships: (1) States as DB plan sponsors have underfunded their plans as indicated by their failure to meet annual employer funding requirements; and (2) Increasing the employee and employer contribution rate and reducing the cost of retirement benefits are associated with higher plan stock funding ratios and lower unfunded pension liabilities. Results from my fixed-effects (FE) panel regression analyses provide the clearest empirical evidence to date that state DB pension plan sponsors underfunded their required annual employer contributions. The financial condition of a state’s budget is also shown to have a significant effect on the amount states are able to contribute into their pension funds. I find empirical support for the crucial function of employer contributions in determining the overall funded status of state pension plans. This finding is further reinforced when I estimate plan stock funding ratios using a dynamic system GMM (sGMM) panel regression model. The results from static FE and dynamic sGMM models suggest no significant effect on overall plan funding levels from changes in the employee contribution rate or the average retirement benefit cost. Lastly, the results lend evidence to the significant influence of past funding levels on current funding levels. It is recommended that future empirical research account for the dynamic nature of public pension funding and related endogeneity issues. This dissertation concludes by discussing the implications of the empirical findings for policy makers seeking to improve the funded status of their respective state DB retirement systems.

En un peu moins de trente ans, les modalités de financement du système de retraite ont été complètement bouleversées. Les nouvelles règles en vigueur se caractérisent non seulement par leur instabilité et leur complexité, mais elles ont en outre eu pour effet d’écarter le système de retraite de sa logique initiale. Alors que l’organisation administrative et financière mise en place à la Libération avait pour objectif de concrétiser une vision essentiellement contributive, corporatiste et équitable de la prise en charge du risque « vieillesse », les réformes intervenues depuis le début des années 1990 s’inscrivent dans une toute autre logique, davantage fondée sur l’idée de redistribution, d’universalisme et d’égalité en droit. La présente étude vise à démontrer que les modalités de financement du système de retraite ne sont pas neutres. Des mesures qui apparaissent au premier abord comme étant essentiellement techniques et comptables vont en réalité pouvoir renforcer les principes sur lesquels repose la prise en charge du risque « vieillesse » ou au contraire, les affaiblir. Au-delà, c’est toute une conception politique et idéologique de la retraite qui est en jeu. Avant de mener l’indispensable réforme du système de retraite, il est donc important de prendre conscience de la signification et de la portée des différentes techniques financières qui existent. Ce n’est qu’à cette condition que pourra être engagée une réforme cohérente, capable de garantir l’équilibre des comptes sociaux tout en respectant un cadre normatif et idéologique clairement posé et assumé. / In just under thirty years, the means of financing the retirement pension system have completely changed. The rules currently in force are characterised not only by their instability and complexity, but also by the fact that they suppose a total departure from the original rationale behind said system. Whereas the administrative and financial structure set up during the Liberation sought to instil an essentially contributive, corporativist and equitable scheme to cover the risk of “old age”, the reforms introduced since the beginning of the 1990s respond to an entirely different logic, more based on the concept of redistribution, universalism and equality in the eyes of the law. The present study aims to show that the means of financing the pension system are far from neutral. Provisions that at first glance can seem to be of a quintessentially technical or accounting nature in fact serve to reinforce, or even to weaken, the underlying principals of how to cover the risk of “old age”. Thereafter, there is a entire political and ideological vision of retirement in play. Before carrying out the much-needed reform of the pension system, it is therefore vital that we are aware of the import and scope of the various financial techniques that currently exist. Only by doing so can we pave the way for a coherent reform of the system, which is able to guarantee the balance of social accounts whilst also adhering to a regulatory and ideological framework that is clearly implemented and assumed.

This thesis examines stabilizing mechanisms in social security retirement systems (“SSRS”), especially those purporting to be automatic balancing mechanisms (“ABM”). It develops a consistent approach to identifying whether an ABM is robust, partial or transitory and establishes a terminology to classify balancing mechanisms. Both financial and equitable balances are considered in assessing whether an ABM achieves balance. Families of definitions of equity are presented and a benchmark by which to measure equitable balance is defined and applied. The balancing mechanisms of Canada, Germany, Japan and Sweden are described, evaluated and classified. None of these mechanisms are found to be robust. This thesis provides a critical analysis of an approach referred to as integration to financial markets and the approach is found to be deficient. In analyzing the Swedish SSRS a critical error in the way assets are calculated is identified and a suitable correction is proposed. A further weakness in the application of the Swedish ABM is identified that means that once an imbalance occurs, balance is unlikely to be restored. The thesis also discusses some of the unusual characteristics of the steady-state contribution rate calculation for the Canadian SSRS and shows that although it has limited application and does not appear to depend on any actuarial principle, the steady-state contribution rate calculation creates a tension between the near and distant future, which is a factor in achieving financial balance over a seventy-five year horizon. With respect to the balancing mechanism in the Canadian SSRS, the thesis proposes a change in how the mechanism is defined so that the mechanism would be robust, within certain ranges.

This thesis examines stabilizing mechanisms in social security retirement systems (“SSRS”), especially those purporting to be automatic balancing mechanisms (“ABM”). It develops a consistent approach to identifying whether an ABM is robust, partial or transitory and establishes a terminology to classify balancing mechanisms. Both financial and equitable balances are considered in assessing whether an ABM achieves balance. Families of definitions of equity are presented and a benchmark by which to measure equitable balance is defined and applied. The balancing mechanisms of Canada, Germany, Japan and Sweden are described, evaluated and classified. None of these mechanisms are found to be robust. This thesis provides a critical analysis of an approach referred to as integration to financial markets and the approach is found to be deficient. In analyzing the Swedish SSRS a critical error in the way assets are calculated is identified and a suitable correction is proposed. A further weakness in the application of the Swedish ABM is identified that means that once an imbalance occurs, balance is unlikely to be restored. The thesis also discusses some of the unusual characteristics of the steady-state contribution rate calculation for the Canadian SSRS and shows that although it has limited application and does not appear to depend on any actuarial principle, the steady-state contribution rate calculation creates a tension between the near and distant future, which is a factor in achieving financial balance over a seventy-five year horizon. With respect to the balancing mechanism in the Canadian SSRS, the thesis proposes a change in how the mechanism is defined so that the mechanism would be robust, within certain ranges.

This thesis object with functioning of present retirement system in the Czech republic and in selected countries. There are described differences of financing and differences of pillars on which are this systems built. Further are in this thesis answered reasons for reforming of this systems. The goal of this thesis is design expert system used to serve to financial advisers for suitable saving product selection according to client requests.