Generational Accounting as a Tool to Assess Fiscal Sustainability: An Overview of the Methodology
Abstract
The paper surveys the methodology of generational accounting, a tool for gauging intertemporal imbalance in government finances facing demographic transition. Starting from the fiscal balance rule providing the theoretical background, we review the methods of generational accountants for generating empirical projections of the items building up to the intertemporal government budget. We debate indication of generational redistribution by lifetime expected net tax payments and several indicators for fiscal sustainability found in the literature. Finally, the performance of generational accounts, which ignore behavioral and policy dynamics, is compared with that of generational welfare indicators based on overlapping generations general equilibrium models.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 990.Length: 45 pages
Date of creation: Jan 2004
Date of revision:
Publication status: published in: E. Berenguer (ed.), Generational Accounting in Spain, Madrid: IFS, 2005, 27-66
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp990
Contact details of provider:
Postal: IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Phone: +49 228 3894 223
Fax: +49 228 3894 180
Web page: http://www.iza.org
Order Information:
Postal: IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Email:
Related research
Keywords: fiscal sustainability; generational accounting; methodology; survey;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- H61 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Budget; Budget Systems
- E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy
- B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2004-02-08 (All new papers)
- NEP-PBE-2004-02-08 (Public Economics)
- NEP-PUB-2004-02-15 (Public Finance)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease 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.:
- Alan J. Auerbach & Jagadeesh Gokhale & Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 1994. "Generational Accounting: A Meaningful Way to Evaluate Fiscal Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 73-94, Winter.
- Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 1989.
"Intergenerational Transfers and Savings,"
NBER Working Papers
2237, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1988. "Intergenerational Transfers and Savings," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 41-58, Spring.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Kamil Dybczak, 2006. "Generational Accounts in the Czech Republic (in English)," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 56(7-8), pages 298-317, July.
- Kamil Dybczak, 2006. "Generational Accounts in the Czech Republic," Working Papers 2006/2, Czech National Bank, Research Department.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp990For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Mark Fallak).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

