The goal of the Workshop for Law Professors on the Economics of Public Pension Reform was to introduce law professors to the looming financial and structural crises facing state pensions systems across the nation in order to improve their research and teaching. With several dozen states adopting modest to major reforms, the economic impact on plan beneficiaries will be substantial and at least twenty-five jurisdictions are facing lawsuits due to the reforms adopted.
The Workshop was designed to be conceptual rather than technical and requires no background in either finance or economics. The Workshop was aimed at introducing participants to the core concepts and issues in public pension reform, including financial economics for public policy, pensions and the public employee labor market, measuring pension liabilities, the challenges and opportunities of public pension reform, retiree health benefits (“the other debt bomb in public employee benefits”), and a case study on the Illinois pension system. The Workshop concluded with a discussion session, in which attendees will be able to present research ideas and get feedback from the Workshop faculty.
The Workshop for Law Professors on the Economics of Public Pension Reform was led by the preeminent scholars on public pensions: Joshua D. Rauh of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Robert C. Pozen of MIT Sloan School of Management, and Michelle Wilde Anderson of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.