The Pension Research Council
PRC Book

The Economics of Pension Insurance

Richard A. Ippolito
This 1989 volume examines the economic rationale for and effects of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the US federal agency that insures corporate or private sector defined-benefit pension plans. The author, former chief economist of the PBGC, contends that the institution was initially created as a too-generous insurance provider in that benefits were not correctly priced relative to risk and exposure. The result was a system subject to moral hazard and redistribution between firms with well-funded pensions to those with poorly-financed funds. He explores ways to convert the scheme to a privatized system.

1989 · Richard D. Irwin, Inc. · ISBN 0-256-07474-7