To Have and Have Not - Evaluating the costs and benefits of the welfare state with an AGE model of Finland with Intergenerational Accounting

Juha Honkatukia and Risto Vaittinen

No 333315, Conference papers from Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project

Abstract: The aging of the population affects most European economies and challenges the sustainability of public funding in many of them. Aging constitutes a twin problem for the economy, as taking care of the growing elderly population ties up more labour in the care sectors while at the same time crowding out other service and manufacturing sectors. The problem is most visible in countries, where these services are publicly provided and funded, such as the Nordic countries, where aging translates into increasing tax burdens shouldered by the progressively smaller working age cohorts. Thus, while the provision of universally available health care is very much at the heart of the Nordic welfare state, the uncertainties of the benefits of the welfare state of the future combined with the present-day certainties of having to face the bill may be undermining the legitimacy of the Nordic model in the eyes of younger generations. The alternative would be a more market-driven provision of welfare services. Whether and how this would beneficial has not been studied. In the current study, we consider the economics of these inter-generational issues. In particular, we model the inter-generational distribution of the benefits of public health and social care provision and the burden of its financing.

Keywords: Food Security and Poverty; Public Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/333315/files/10808.pdf (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:ags:pugtwp:333315

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Conference papers from Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().