"The regulatory framework governing retirement plans was built at a time when most workers relied on defined benefit pensions. Investment decisions were centralized; participants bore little direct market risk. Today, that world has been replaced almost entirely by defined contribution plans, where individuals shoulder both investment and longevity risk.... [T]his post examines how ERISA's fiduciary model fits, sometimes uncomfortably, with a system in which participants choose from increasingly complex menus and defaults shoulder enormous responsibility on their behalf."  MORE >>