Les modèles d'équilibre général calculable à générations imbriquées. Enjeux, méthodes et résultats

The computable approach to general-equilibrium analysis has greatly benefited from explicitly accounting for the time and generational dimensions. This paper offers a critical survey of one particular branch of applied modeling, namely the computable, overlapping-generations, general-equilibrium models. We first review the issues that can meaningfully be raised within this framework, given currently foreseen demographic trends and current legislation. The following section presents the theoretical kernel of these models, and briefly surveys the major contributions to this literature since the early eighties, reviewing their calibration techniques and the simulation methods used. We then stress some important conclusions of these analysis with regard to public policies in such fields as retirement, taxation, public debt, as well as some implications of plausible future demographic evolutions.