This ended up forming the basis of her PHD study.
"It was just fantastic," says Altmann. "I was working at LSE on a new database that had only just been released of the family expenditure survey, so looking at the income and spending patterns focused on pensions.
"And my advisers were professor Tony Atkinson, who was the particular person who got me into it, Mervin King, and Nick Stern. I was just there and working with them every day, it was wonderful."
After her studies she had an academic job lined up, but thought to herself if she wanted to be a good economist she needed to experience the real world first.
She landed a job managing pension fund money for the Prudential. It was the beginning of the 1980s and "here I was, a brand new starter suddenly in charge of billions of pounds of money that they wanted to switch from bonds into equities," she reflects.
At the time the idea was that over the long term equities should outperform bonds, she explains, so funds were switched into equities and diversified overseas.
"It was a really exciting time to be in the City and of course I was managing to deliver great returns for our pension investors."
She started off as a UK funds analyst, then she headed up Chase's European equities investment division, an area she describes as "very much a backwater" riddled with inefficiencies, and eventually its international equities, including US pension funds.
In the following years she took a couple of more jobs in the City until she decided it was time to quit City life after having her third child.
Entering policy... and politics
It did not take long for Altmann to re-emerge on the scene, this time with her own consultancy business, which eventually led to a role in the UK government.
"One of my first assignments was looking at investing for venture capital and why weren't pension funds looking at any of this," she explains. "I ended up setting up a big review for the Treasury...which was basically doing what the Mansion House reforms are now doing.
"I've seen it all come round, looking at how to get pensions funds putting more money into venture capital and private equity."
By the early naughties the bulk of her work was for the government of the day, who were increasingly interested in asset allocation and social policy, and how better-off pensioners were getting access to great opportunities while many other people were not benefitting from it.
Number 10 was also looking at savings policy for lower income groups at the time, and how to encourage people to save more for the long term.
