Unfunded public pension obligations represent a great challenge for policy makers in the American states. We posit that a part of pension underfunding relates to the level of public corruption. Empirical findings in the article show that funding ratios in public pension funds are inversely related to the incidence levels of corruption in the state, with other fiscal, political, and institutional covariates held constant. We show that this can happen through higher pension benefits, lower actuarially required contributions (ARCs), lower percentage of actual ARC contributions, and poorer investment outcomes. Based on empirical estimates, we find that a reduction of corruption by one standard deviation around the mean would permit the states to save on pension benefits by 10.24% annually (or US$1,894.64 per recipient), increase required ARC by 4.40%, increase actual ARC contributions by 8.46%, and improve investment returns by 4.72%. Therefore, policies to reduce public-sector corruption, or to improve the insulation of pension funds in relatively more corrupt environments, can make a significant contribution toward tackling the public pension underfunding crisis in the American states.

对于美国各州的决策者来说，无资金保障的公共养老金义务是一个巨大的挑战。我们认为，养老金资金不足的一部分与公共腐败程度有关。文章中的经验发现表明，公共养老基金的资金比率与该州的腐败发生率成反比，而其他财政，政治和机构协变量保持不变。我们表明，这可以通过较高的养老金，较低的精算要求缴款，较低的实际ARC缴款比例以及较差的投资结果来实现。根据经验估算，我们发现，将腐败程度降低约一个标准偏差即可使各州每年节省10.24％的养老金（或每位接受者1,894.64美元），所需的ARC增加4.40％，将ARC实际贡献提高8.46％，并将投资收益提高4.72％。因此，减少公共部门腐败或在相对更腐败的环境中改善养老基金的隔离度的政策，可以为解决美国各州的公共养老金资金不足危机做出重大贡献。