Honorable Mention, Business, Management & Accounting category, 1992 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Awards Competition presented by the Association of American Publishers, Inc. Why are pension funds so large and benefits so small? Thisexamination of the 120-year-old American system of privatized social insurance--often called, at 1.7 trillion dollars, the biggest lump of money in the world--reveals that the system fails to provide adequate retirement income security, its most prominentgoal, and, in fact, its greatest influence is in supplying funds to U.S. capital markets. Linking market forces, historical movements, and social norms in the evolution of pensions, Ghilarducci"s study is the first to focus on all major aspectsof the system. Its trenchant analysis of the many sides of pensions and pension policy addresses questions of whom the system benefits, its direct and social costs, and the possibilities of reforms that would take into account the...