Includes “American public pension funds are allowed (under rules from the Government Accounting Standards Board) to discount their liabilities by the expected return on their assets. The higher the expected return, the higher the discount rate. … The academics also look at the trustees, the people who make the investment decisions. They find a relationship between the riskiness of a fund’s assets and the proportion of political trustees (such as state treasurers) and worker trustees elected by scheme members…”
Read the full article on: The Economist