The ultimate guidebook for navigating the new world of pensions and retirement plans In the wake of the explosive growth of defined contribution (DC) plans invested with target date strategies, and the understanding of how important these strategies can be in effectively meeting retirement income goals, plan sponsors are seeking more optimal target date approaches. This timely book provides you with in-depth answers from the nation's most qualified and experienced experts to pressing questions about DC plan design. Presents the views of individuals from all across the market Includes a broad range of plan sponsors both in the corporate world and in the public/government sectors Offers views from consultants and advisors from the most respected firms, academics who teach at leading universities, and other innovative leaders With a broad range of knowledge and insight, Designing Successful Target Date Strategies in Defined Contribution Plans helps you understand the evolution of DC plans, pulls together all angles of what it takes to develop custom target date strategies, and provides you with a look ahead to the future.

Start-to-finish guidance toward building and implementing a robust DC plan Successful Defined Contribution Investment Design offers a comprehensive guidebook for fiduciaries tasked with structuring and implementing a 401(k) or other defined contribution (DC) pension plan. More than a collection of the usual piecemeal information, this book seeks to offer a complete, contemporary framework for plan design, together with tested methodologies and analytic techniques to help streamline plan monitoring, management and improve participant outcomes. Examples from plan sponsors provide on-the-ground insight while suggestions from DC consultants add expert perspective. Views from ERISA expert counsel provide additional understanding—along with input from academic thought leaders. Finally, investment evaluation and analysis is joined with participant savings and asset allocation data to look prospectively at potential outcomes, and case studies illustrate real-world implementation of objective-aligned asset allocation such as custom target-date strategies. Though the focus is primarily on U.S. plan design, author perspectives from countries including Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada provide relevant and helpful viewpoints for both new and experienced plan fiduciaries. For the vast majority of workers, DC plans have replaced traditional defined benefit pension plans as the primary source of employer-provided retirement income. This book provides comprehensive guidance to help you construct a plan to help workers to retire with confidence. Adopt a framework for DC evaluation and structure Learn new methodologies for investment choice evaluation Use the innovative PIMCO Retirement Income Cost Estimate—or PRICE—to help quantify the amount of money a worker needs to create and stay on track to building a real income stream in retirement Examine methodologies used at major companies in the U.S. and globally DC plans are the most rapidly growing retirement market in the world, yet sources of consolidated structural and analytical guidance are lacking. Successful Defined Contribution Investment Design fills the gap with a comprehensive handbook that covers the bases to help you develop an objective-aligned defined contribution plan.

The financial crisis and the ensuing Great Recession alerted those seeking to protect old-age security, about the extreme risks confronting the financial and political institutions comprising our retirement system. The workforce of today and tomorrow must count on longer lives and deferred retirement, while at the same time it is taking on increased responsibility for managing retirement risk. This volume explores new ways to think about, manage, and finance longevity risk, capital market risk, model risk, and regulatory risk. This volume offers an in-depth analysis of the 'black swans' that threaten private and public pensions around the world. Capital market shocks, surprises to longevity, regulatory/political risk, and errors in modelling, will all have profound consequences for stakeholders ranging from pension plan participants, plan sponsors, policymakers, and those who seek to make retirement more resistant. This book analyzes such challenges to retirement sustainability, and it explores ways to better manage and finance them. Insights provided help build retirement systems capable of withstanding what the future will bring.

American workers rely on their employers to provide a way to generate retirement income beyond their Social Security earnings. Many employers still offer traditional defined benefit (DB) pension plans. A growing majority, however, have replaced DB plans with account-based defined contribution (DC) plans. Virtually everyone acknowledges that the basic DC plan design is flawed. Yet as a society with low private savings and a fraying Social Security system, we count on this imperfect structure to serve as a retirement security bulwark. Workers and society both need the employer-sponsored retirement system to function well. Enhancing DC plan design therefore becomes critical. Defined Contribution Plans: Challenges and Opportunities for Plan Sponsors offers guidance to plan sponsors interested in better understanding the primary issues confronting DC plans. We wrote this book from the viewpoint of the plan sponsor seeking to improve the DC system, and it follows five major themes: the plan participant, the plan sponsor, plan design, investments and investment managers, and asset decumulation in retirement. We present the material conversationally from a high-level perspective. We have not sought to write an encyclopedia on DC plans but rather focus on the basic features of well-run plans. We address key challenges facing DC plans and offer associated design and policy recommendations for plan sponsors and other interested parties to consider. Plan design improvements almost certainly will be incremental, rather than sweeping top-down changes mandated by regulators. Plan sponsors individually will make the important decisions that have lasting consequences for participants and for society. Our objective is to spark interest among sponsors, encouraging them to carry out additional research and take action. We believe the DC system will be strengthened by informed sponsors advocating for and implementing thoughtful strategic changes to their plans.

A practical guide to getting personal investing right Somewhere along the way, something has gone very wrong with the way individuals save and invest. Too often, households are drawn in by promotional suggestions masquerading as impartial investment advice. Consumers get saddled with more risk than they realize. Authors Zvi Bodie and Rachelle Taqqu understand the dilemma that today's investors face, and with Risk Less and Prosper they will help you find your financial footing. Written in an accessible style, this practical guide skillfully explains why personal investing is all about you—your goals, your values and your career path. It shows how to understand investment risk and choose the particular blend of risk and safety that is right for you. And it lays out several simple yet powerful ways for small investors to cast a reliable safety net to achieve their financial goals and truly prosper. Coauthors Bodie and Taqqu challenge the myth that all investments require risk, then highlight some important risks that families often disregard when deciding where to put their money. Later, they connect the dots between investment and investor, showing us all how to grasp our own investment risk profiles and how we may use these insights to make more fitting investment choices. Outlines a straightforward way to invest by aligning your investments with your goals and the risk levels you can bear Provides basic investment abc's for readers who are otherwise literate Lays out a simple, actionable plan for achieving your goals Explains the role of risk-free assets and investment insurance in assuring that you reach your most essential goals Contrary to popular belief, investing doesn't have to be complicated. You can build wealth without taking great risks. Risk Less and Prosper will show you how to make investment decisions that will make your financial life less stressful and more profitable.

The contents of the March 2015 issue (Volume 124, Number 5) are: Articles: • “Article III Judicial Power, the Adverse-Party Requirement, and Non-Contentious Jurisdiction” by James E. Pfander & Daniel D. Birk • “Beyond Diversification: The Pervasive Problem of Excessive Fees and 'Dominated Funds' in 401(k) Plans” by Ian Ayres & Quinn Curtis • “The Uneasy Case for Favoring Long-Term Shareholders” by Jesse M. Fried • “Deviance, Aspiration, and the Stories We Tell: Reconciling Mass Atrocity and the Criminal Law” by Saira Mohamed Notes: • “Mitigating Jurors’ Racial Biases: The Effects of Content and Timing of Jury Instructions” by Elizabeth Ingriselli • “How To Eat an Elephant: Corporate Group Structure of Systemically Important Financial Institutions, Orderly Liquidation Authority, and Single Point of Entry Resolution” by Kwon-Yong Jin • “Public Actors, Private Law: Local Governments’ Use of Covenants To Regulate Land Use” by Noah M. Kazis Comment: • “Methodological Stare Decisis and Intersystemic Statutory Interpretation in the Choice-of-Law Context” by Grace E. Hart Quality ebook formatting includes fully linked footnotes and an active Table of Contents (including linked Contents for all individual Articles, Notes, and Essays), proper Bluebook formatting, and active URLs in footnotes.

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Start-to-finish guidance toward building and implementing a robust DC plan Successful Defined Contribution Investment Design offers a comprehensive guidebook for fiduciaries tasked with structuring and implementing a 401(k) or other defined contribution (DC) pension plan. More than a collection of the usual piecemeal information, this book seeks to offer a complete, contemporary framework for plan design, together with tested methodologies and analytic techniques to help streamline plan monitoring, management and improve participant outcomes. Examples from plan sponsors provide on-the-ground insight while suggestions from DC consultants add expert perspective. Views from ERISA expert counsel provide additional understanding—along with input from academic thought leaders. Finally, investment evaluation and analysis is joined with participant savings and asset allocation data to look prospectively at potential outcomes, and case studies illustrate real-world implementation of objective-aligned asset allocation such as custom target-date strategies. Though the focus is primarily on U.S. plan design, author perspectives from countries including Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada provide relevant and helpful viewpoints for both new and experienced plan fiduciaries. For the vast majority of workers, DC plans have replaced traditional defined benefit pension plans as the primary source of employer-provided retirement income. This book provides comprehensive guidance to help you construct a plan to help workers to retire with confidence. Adopt a framework for DC evaluation and structure Learn new methodologies for investment choice evaluation Use the innovative PIMCO Retirement Income Cost Estimate—or PRICE—to help quantify the amount of money a worker needs to create and stay on track to building a real income stream in retirement Examine methodologies used at major companies in the U.S. and globally DC plans are the most rapidly growing retirement market in the world, yet sources of consolidated structural and analytical guidance are lacking. Successful Defined Contribution Investment Design fills the gap with a comprehensive handbook that covers the bases to help you develop an objective-aligned defined contribution plan.