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Future-biased government

Francisco Gonzalez (francisco.gonzalez@uwaterloo.ca), Itziar Lazkano and Sjak Smulders (j.a.smulders@uvt.nl)

No 1502, Working Papers from University of Waterloo, Department of Economics

Abstract: We argue that governments are future biased when they aggregate the preferences of overlapping generations. Future bias, which involves preference reversals favoring future over current consumption, explains why governments legislate old-age transfers at the expense of capital accumulation and growth, even if generations are altruistic.

JEL-codes: D71 D72 H55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2015-10, Revised 2015-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-dge, nep-fdg, nep-mic and nep-pol
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wat:wpaper:1502

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