On the Demographics and the Severity of the Social Security Crisis

Emin Gahramanov

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2016, vol. 16, issue 2, 1001-1028

Abstract: Changing demographics across the world threatens the sustainability of pension benefits. Yet there is widespread sentiment among some business and policy analysts that in the presence of population ageing, more elderly people would mean more old-age consumption and robust business opportunities across all spending dimensions. In this paper we look at a micro-level analysis of intertemporal consumption/saving behavior, and find that in the presence of notable heterogeneity with respect to the consumer impatience and rationality degree, different demographic challenges and likely policy responses would imply greatly varying and significant consumption changes at old age. We also touch upon the associated issues of welfare analysis and transitional effects and discuss various complexities and challenges for policy implications and economic projections.

Keywords: pension crisis; perfect foresight; rule of thumb; baby boom; life expectancy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D6 D91 E21 H55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2015-0098 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

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:bpj:bejeap:v:16:y:2016:i:2:p:1001-1028:n:12

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/bejeap/html

DOI: 10.1515/bejeap-2015-0098

Access Statistics for this article

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy is currently edited by Hendrik Jürges and Sandra Ludwig

More articles in The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().