Excerpt:
The main challenge facing the public pension industry is the high assumed rates of returns on pension assets relative to what equities or bonds are likely to deliver.Many US public pension funds expect a rate of return in the neighborhood of 7% per year. But in today’s capital-market environment, achieving that sustainably over the long term has become an increasingly daunting task.
In fact, this is not a new problem. As Chart 1 illustrates, the gap between the risk-free and assumed rate of return has been widening for the past four decades. In the1980s, the risk-free rate (as approximated by the yield for ten-year US Treasury bonds) was often far higher than the assumed rate of return, making it relatively easy for pension funds to hit their targets. Today, however, the risk-free rate is more than six percentage points below targeted return.
Author: Ben Meng
Publication Date: 15 January 2021
Publication Site: Project Syndicate