Preparations are underway to revise national accounting to implement actuarial recording of pension liabilities for corporations and government as an employer. This paper extends this to unfunded public pensions with the help of 'implicit tax' in pension contributions. The clearest advantages of the revision appear in situations where pension liabilities are shifted from the corporate sector to government, and where part of the public pension system is privatised. The proposed revision raises public debt and deficit to new orders of magnitude. The paper provides a framework for setting the debt and deficit targets under both current and proposed definitions.JEL classification: H1, H5, H6.
This article explores how the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) may cope with the future costs of population ageing in the European Union. Clearly, population ageing has forced countries to reform their pension systems, and will continue to do so, both by reducing the generosity of pension arrangements and by switching to funding rather than relying on pure pay-as-you go pension provision. We study how such reforms affect the room for adhering to the SGP, but also how the SGP may induce or hamper the incentives for reform. We will refer to recent literature on ageing and pensions and on the SGP. We also calibrate a simple model for addressing intergenerational equity and discuss its implications for the SGP. (JEL codes: H11, H55, H60)
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