ABSTRACT
Issues involving the administration of state and local government pension funds are currently on their way to the apex of the current domestic policy agenda. This statement is not to suggest that these variants on retirement security have not been on such a track before. In fact, various questions concerning their management and overall purpose have waxed and waned, at least since Israel Rafkind generally acknowledged the renewed interest in public sector retirement systems due to the ‘‘new’’ social security program in 1939. Ever since that publication the concerns of state and local government retirement systems have focused on a number of topics ranging from the mundane notion of an actuarially sound pension plan to hot button issues such as the collective potential of economically targeted investments and the ethical standards of socially responsible investing. Of course the rise and fall of any particular discussion or debate largely depends on the underlying economic and political climates of a specific era. Retrospectively speaking, these factors always appear to serve as an impetus for an administrative idea whose time has come.
