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Aging, (Pension) Reforms and the Shadow Economy in Southern Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Baksa

    (Central European University)

  • Zsuzsa Munkacsi

    (Bank of Lithuania)

Abstract

Southern Europe is currently experiencing a double-whammy: high levels of government debt coupled with a rapidly aging population. Thus, the consolidation of (pension) budgets seems inevitable. In this paper we examine the short- and long-run macroeconomic e ects of public old-age pension reforms and other scal policies under conditions of population aging. To do so, we calibrate OGRE, a New Keynesian model with overlapping generations, unemployment and an underground sector to match annual data on Portugal and Spain. Our main nding is that a retirement-age increase is the least harmful policy with respect to long-run output. However, we raise some doubts about the feasibility of implementing this policy.Classification-JEL: E24, E26, H55, J11, J46Keywords: population aging, public old-age pension reforms, pay-as-you-go, fully funded, shadow economy, informal employment, government debt, New Keynesian model, overlapping generations, demography, unemployment, retirement ageLength: 71 pages

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Baksa & Zsuzsa Munkacsi, 2016. "Aging, (Pension) Reforms and the Shadow Economy in Southern Europe," Bank of Lithuania Working Paper Series 32, Bank of Lithuania.
    • Handle: RePEc:lie:wpaper:32
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    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Baksa & Zsuzsa Munkacsi, 2016. "A Detailed Description of OGRE, the OLG Model," Bank of Lithuania Working Paper Series 31, Bank of Lithuania.
    2. Masuch, Klaus & Anderton, Robert & Setzer, Ralph & Benalal, Nicholai, 2018. "Structural policies in the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 210, European Central Bank.
    3. Daniel Baksa & Zsuzsa Munkacsi & Carolin Nerlich, 2020. "A Framework for Assessing the Costs of Pension Reform Reversals," IMF Working Papers 2020/132, International Monetary Fund.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    population aging; public old-age pension reforms; pay-as-you-go; fully funded; shadow economy; informal employment; government debt; new keynesian model; overlapping generations; demography; unemployment; retirement agelength: 71 pages;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E26 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Informal Economy; Underground Economy
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts

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