Institutional Investor has an excellent article about the pension crisis, made all the more excellent by usage of an article I wrote for the National Center for Policy Analysis. I commented on how ERISA (the employee benefits law) changed the playing field between defined benefit plans (traditional pensions) and defined contribution plans (such as 401k's):
After ERISA the move
away from corporate fixed pensions became a rout. “Virtually no new
defined benefit plans have been created in the last ten years,” wrote
economist William Conerly in a 2005 study for the National Center for
Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank. “Once the Cadillacs of
retirement plans, they are now the Edsels of employee benefits.” [emphasis added]
My paper is available at NCPA's website.