Survey of Largest Public Pensions Released

The quarterly survey provides national summary statistics on the revenues, expenditures and composition of assets of the 100 largest state and local public employee retirement systems in the United States. These 100 systems comprise 89.4% of financial activity among such entities, based on the 2007 Census of Governments.

The report for the third quarter found that total holdings and investments of major public-employee retirement systems decreased for the the first time since the second quarter of 2010, following four consecutive quarterly increases. Total holdings and investments quarter-to-quarter decreased $236.6 billion, or 8.5%, to $2.5 trillion. The Census Bureau said the decrease was driven largely by the decreases in corporate stocks and international securities.

The survey presents the most current statistics about investment decisions by state and local public employee retirement systems, which are among the largest types of institutional investors in the U.S. financial markets. These statistical tables are published three months after each calendar quarter and show national financial transactions and trends for the past five years.

The data are available at http://www.census.gov/govs/qpr/.