50 States of Gray: An Innovative Solution to the Defined Contribution Retirement Crisis. This item is unavailable.50 States of Gray: An Innovative Solution to the Defined Contribution Retirement Crisis

Another retirement crisis is looming as one-third of private-sector, typically poor and unsophisticated workers, probably have little to no pension security. The fifty states have decided to enact reforms, but they are unwilling to assume any liability. Effective reform should ensure a target, guaranteed, inflation/standard-of-living-indexed retirement income through death. The book proposes a four-step reform process that articulates roles, responsibilities, and sequencing of steps to effectively address the looming retirement crisis. Current reform models potentially expose participants to costly, risky, error-prone, and illiquid alternatives, which could transfer wealth from poor citizens to rich asset managers and from short-lived poor and minority citizens to rich and majority populations. Retirement planning presents a wealth of complex challenges associated with saving, investing, and decumulation. To address these challenges, Muralidhar provides an innovative Flex MMM reform model that reflects the goals of numerous stakeholders, including, states, employers, employees, asset managers, and regulators, by showing steps the federal and state governments could take to alleviate the guesswork and insecurity involved in the retirement saving process. Muralidhar also demonstrates that the lynchpin for retirement security globally is an innovative new retirement bond (called SeLFIES ) he has jointly developed with Robert C. Merton that governments could easily issue to achieve multiple goals.

Arun Muralidhar, PhD, is founder of Mcube Investment Technologies LLC and founder and client chief investment officer of AlphaEngine Global Investment Solutions. His primary focus is on dynamic (intelligent) beta and currency management and how clients can get paid to manage risk. He has written extensively about pension reform, asset allocation, asset pricing, risk-adjusted performance, and currency management. His books include A SMART Approach to Portfolio Management (2011), Innovations in Pension Fund Management (2001), and Rethinking Pension Reform (2004), co-authored with Nobel Laureate Franco Modigliani. Muralidhar has written award-winning articles for trade journals, as well as a series of op-eds with Nobel Laureate Robert C. Merton about innovations to improve retirement security. Previously, Muralidhar served as managing director at FX Concepts Inc., managing director and head of currency research at J.P. Morgan Fleming Asset Management, and head of research and a member of the investment management committee at the World Bank. He serves as an expert advisor to the World Economic Forum Retirement Investment Systems Improvement Project, a member of the Strategic Retirement Advisory Council for the Investments & Wealth Institute for the Retirement Management Advisor(SM) designation, and an academic scholar at Georgetown University's Center for Retirement Initiatives. He is also an adjunct professor of finance at George Washington University. Muralidhar earned a PhD in managerial economics from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a BS from Wabash College.