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In the past several decades, pension plans have become one of the most significant institutional influences on labor and financial markets in the U.S. In an effort to understand the economic effects of this growth, the National Bureau of Economic Research embarked on a major research project in 1980. Issues in Pension Economics, the third in a series of four projected volumes to result from thsi study, covers a broad range of pension issues and utilizes new and richer data sources than have been previously available.

The papers in this volume cover such issues as the interaction of pension-funding decisions and corporate finances; the role of pensions in providing adequate and secure retirement income, including the integration of pension plans with social security and significant drops in the U.S. saving rate; and the incentive effects of pension plans on labor market behavior and the implications of plans on labor market behavior and the implications of plans for different demographic groups.

Issues in Pension Economics offers important empirical studies and makes valuable theoretical contributions to current thinking in an area that will most likely continue to be a source of controversy and debate for some time to come. The volume should prove useful to academics and policymakers, as well as to members of the business and labor communities.

"It's Legal but It Ain't Right chronicles the abuse of power and privilege by businesses that defy the strictures of law and limits of regulation. Contributors stretch the conceptual boundaries of corporate deviance across a wide range of industries at a time when standards of corporate social responsibility and good corporate citizenship are in flux."
--William S. Laufer, Professor, The Wharton School of Business

"This delightful and serious book involves a matter I have long felt of first importance. That is our tendency to make social truth and acceptance conform to personal or larger corporate interests. On this I have written , but gladly yield to this persuasive parallel. No one concerned with literate, informed, and relevant---as distinct from self-serving---truth should miss It's Legal but It Ain't Right."
--John Kenneth Galbraith

"This absorbing and well-written book of essays on the harmful consequences of legal industries skillfully illuminates the ways in which some corporate harms fail to be transformed into criminal law-making and enforcement, and offers cogent suggestions for better regulation in the public interest."
--Dr. Michael Levi, Professor of Criminology, Cardiff University


Many U.S. corporations and the goods they produce negatively impact our society without breaking any laws. We are all too familiar with the tobacco industry's effect on public health and health care costs for smokers and nonsmokers, as well as the role of profit in the pharmaceutical industry's research priorities. It's Legal but It Ain't Right tackles these issues, plus the ethical ambiguities of legalized gambling, the firearms trade, the fast food industry, the pesticide industry, private security companies, and more. Aiming to identify industries and goods that undermine our societal values and to hold them accountable for their actions, this collection makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion of ethics in our time.

This accessible exploration of corporate legitimacy and crime will be important reading for advocates, journalists, students, and anyone interested in the dichotomy between law and legitimacy.