Should Generational Accounts Replace Public Budgets and Deficits?

Robert Haveman

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1994, vol. 8, issue 1, 95-111

Abstract: The author assesses the concept of 'generational accounts' and the specific accounts constructed by Alan Auerbach, Jagadeesh Gokhale, and Laurence Kotlikoff (1991). Although these accounts support the assertion of present-orientation in fiscal policy, they rest on numerous assumptions based on judgments that are open to question. These involve the treatment of the public budget constraint, the benefits from public exhaustive expenditures, economic and population projections, the discount rate, and fiscal incidence. Alternative and equally reasonable assumptions could yield radically different conclusions. The author concludes that the Auerbach, Gokhale, and Kotlikoff accounts should not replace the annual public budget, as they argue.

JEL-codes: H60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1994
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.8.1.95
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (83)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.8.1.95 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:jecper:v:8:y:1994:i:1:p:95-111

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Perspectives is currently edited by Enrico Moretti

More articles in Journal of Economic Perspectives from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().