The theme of this panel is the financial and legal dynamics surrounding public sector pensions. The purpose of the panel is to explore the broadly experienced denigration of funding across public sector systems since the start of the 21st century so as to better understand not only challenges but also opportunities for restoring balance in the funding of these plans. Papers in this panel address salient themes regarding the impact of economic conditions, financial market volatility, and low interest rates on public sector plan balances. The role of plan sponsors' decisions regarding funding and actuarial assumptions is also addressed. The session thus provides perspective on public sector pension policies adopted in light of external challenges, and gauges their promise in addressing funding obligations moving forward. The first paper examines whether state governments deliberately underfunded public pensions as a backdoors means of deficit finance in the face of adverse fiscal and financial shocks. The authors find that plan sponsors increased pension contributions, rather than decreased them, in response to adverse shocks. In the second paper, a public finance scholar and a legal scholar address the evolution of pension law in light of changes in pension plan portfolio allocation practices, particularly the increased holdings of alternative investments, over the past 12 or so years. The third paper examines the roles of actuarial assumptions and pension plan characteristics in determining required plan contributions, pension liabilities and funded ratios. The authors find that changes in actuarial methods and assumptions can lead to significant changes in pension costs and liabilities, and provide opportunities for manipulating the pension funding status.