In this paper we show that the generational accounting framework used in macroeconomics to measure tax incidence can, in some cases, yield inaccurate measurements of the tax burden across age cohorts. This result is very important for policy evaluation, because it shows that the selection of tax policies designed to change generational imbalances could be misleading. We illustrate this problem in the context of a Social Security reform where we show how fiscal policy can affect the intergenerational gap across cohorts without impacting the distribution of welfare. We provide a more accurate procedure that only measures changes in generational imbalances derived from policies with real effects.
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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in its series Working Papers with number
2009-003.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Kotlikoff, Laurence J., 2002.
"Generational policy,"
Handbook of Public Economics,
in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 27, pages 1873-1932
Elsevier.
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