1

Intergenerational Perspectives on Ageing, Economics and Globalisation

Michael D Fine1

Note: This is the prepublication version of this article. The final publication version is published as

Fine, M. (2014) ‘Intergenerational perspectives on ageing, economics and globalisation’ Australasian Journal on Ageing, 33(4): 220-225. The published article may be accessed here:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajag.2014.33.issue-

4/issuetoc;jsessionid=36FDFEC6977644CEC9BEFF232464C759.f03t04

or through your university’s online subscription library

Abstract

Evidence shows ageing to be historically a product of economic development, closely associated with

the high living standards and national affluence. Nonetheless, fears that an aged population leads to

economic stagnation and public bankruptcy are widespread. In justification for cuts to public

programs and the transfer of costs and risks from the state to individuals and families, the projections

of social expenditures, in particular those based on ageing, are frequently identified as overgenerous

and unsustainable in many G20 countries such as Australia and New Zealand. Claims based on a

Intergenerational research methodologies and frameworks, a relatively new and innovative approach

to using data projections, have proven to be important in these policy debates. This article explores

their application for understanding the impact of ageing on the economy in the globalised world of the

twenty-first century.

1 Department of Sociology, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia 2109;

correspondence: michael.fine@mq.edu.au

2

1. Introduction Socio-Economic Perspectives on Ageing

There are many reasons that social gerontologists and other readers of this journal might find to

celebrate extra years of life and the growth of the ageing population that we are now experiencing

globally. However an alternative perspective that sees ageing as a source and leading indicator of

social and economic deterioration has wide currency and is commonly promoted as a form of self-

evident common sense by prominent figures including well known economists and policy makers. In

the more extreme versions of this view, population ageing is seen as a direct cause of economic

stagnation and decline and as potentially precipitating conflict between the generations over scarce

financial resources. A closely related variant sees ageing as a particular economic and fiscal

challenge for governments that can only be met by reducing public spending. This prescription

applies especially to expenditure on older people, although calls to reduce taxes and public spending

and other impacts of this approach are by no means restricted to senior age groups.

These opposing perspectives guide research and policy as well as informing the public imagination.

They thus represent more than just alternative optimistic and pessimistic orientations to population

ageing. They are significant not just as matters of personal belief, but as conceptual frameworks that

pose fundamental and serious questions for anyone interested in ageing. This paper seeks to address

two key questions:

1. Is demographic ageing linked to economic growth and development?

This question concerns the broad link between ageing and prosperity. This is in many ways a

historical question for advanced economies today, although it remains significant on a global scale as

the process of demographic ageing is no longer confined to Western Europe, North America and

Australasia but is becoming more globally extensive and accelerating in its rate of progression.

2. Is an ageing population an asset or a hindrance in the pursuit of long-term sustainable prosperity?

The second question is closely related the first but is typically posed as a concern for the future. Yet

because the future has not yet occurred and remains a matter of conjecture, researchers are required to

rely on projections, forecasts and statistical modelling. In consequence, the answers to the question

depend very much on the theoretical assumptions that underpin the collection of data and associated

methodologies used to in the modelling stage.

The following section of this paper summarises research concerned with the phenomenon that

demographers refer to as ‘the demographic transition’. A short overview of two influential and

widely cited analyses that attempt to address the impact of population ageing in more conventional

strategic analysis and journalistic ways, with results that are often described by critics as

‘apocalyptic’, follows in the section three, along with a brief discussion of other related

macroeconomic analyses.

Section four then turns to a relatively new set of approaches which each use an intergenerational

approach. The first, ‘Generational Accounting’ (1), now widely used by governments across the

OECD, is based on calculations of existing and future taxation transfers between generations. The

results are widely associated with calls for budget cuts, privatisation and fiscal restructuring intended

to reduce public expenditure on older aged citizens. The second, ‘Generational Economics’ (2)

extends beyond the cost of public expenditure to include other available data on transfers between age

groups. Of particular importance is the inclusion of savings and of economic transfers in families.

The results of the application of each of these approaches are important for policy makers and others

concerned with ageing populations, but it is argued that the consequences of the theoretical

assumptions and the limitations of the methodologies are poorly understood.

2. The demographic transition and economic growth

Data on population ageing in developed countries shows that it to be closely related to economic

development. National and international statistics confirm a strong historic link between economic

3

growth and increasing life expectancy, leading to longer lives. A reduced birth rate reducing the

proportion of children adds to the phenomenon that we refer to as demographic ageing (3). As shown

in Table 1, the result is that a far higher proportion of those in what the United Nations terms ‘more

developed regions’ were aged either over 65, or above 80 in 1980 than in the ‘less developed regions’.

The proportion had increased significantly by 2013. Population ageing is projected by the U.N. and

other authorities to continue through to 2030 and 2050, with particular growth in the 80+ age group,

an age at which the use of medical services is increased and the need for ongoing care is pronounced.

Table 1. Proportion of Population at Older Ages in More and Less Developed

Regions (pct of total population).

Age 1980 2013 2030 2050

More developed regions

Total 65+ 11.7 16.8 22.5 25.8

80+ 2.0 4.5 6.4 9.5

Female

65+ 14.0 19.1 25.0 28.5

80+ 2.7 5.8 7.8 11.4

Male

65+ 9.2 14.5 19.8 23.0

80+ 1.3 3.2 5.0 7.5

Less developed regions

Total 65+ 4.1 6.1 9.6 14.0

80+ 0.5 1.1 1.5 3.2

Female

65+ 4.6 6.7 10.4 15.2

80+ 0.6 1.3 1.8 3.8

Male

65+ 3.7 5.5 8.7 12.8

80+ 0.4 0.9 1.2 2.7

Source: U.N. 2013. United Nations Population Division, Profiles of Aging 2013,

http://esa.un.org/unpd/popdev/AgingProfiles2013/default.aspx September 2014

Demographers describe the move as the ‘demographic transition’ (4). This occurred in two distinct

but closely related stages. In the first, beginning roughly towards the end of the eighteenth century in

industrialising Europe, life expectancy increased slowly. As Christine Victor (5: 64) notes, the

increases were ‘due to changes in economic development, material well-being, medical advances and

the development of public health measures leading to control infectious diseases’. Increased

agricultural production, for example, helped reduce starvation, while employment in industry

gradually increased incomes with positive impacts on many aspects of health and wellbeing. From

the late 19th century onwards, social legislation regulating matters such as employment and workplace

health and safety also became increasingly significant. These developments led to a reduction in

deaths in childhood, youth and early adulthood allowing more and more people to survive into old

age. In the second stage, birth rates declined. The need for large numbers of children ceased as the

need to replace children lost to childhood mortality was reduced. Again, a number of socio-economic

factors played a part. These included massive expansions in public education and overall literacy

levels and the move from rural to urban living and employment patterns (6, 7).

The extension of the average life expectancy by more than thirty years in Western Europe and most

advanced countries over the twentieth century, needs to be viewed not just as a by product of

increasing affluence but, as Phillipson points out, as a ‘major achievement for public health and state

intervention in welfare’ (8: 19). As shown in Table 2, continued improvements in life expectancy are

evident today on every continent, as are birth rates in many European and East Asian countries that

are below replacement level (9).

4

Table 2. Life expectancy at birth and total fertility rate 1950-2050

Area

1950-55 2005-10 2025-30 2045-50

Africa Life Exp (yrs)a 38.7 54.1 61.2 67.4

Total Fertility Rateb 6.63 4.61 3.23 2.4

Asia Life Exp (yrs) 41.2 68.9 73.6 76.8

Total Fertility Rate 5.73 2.35 2.01 1.9

Europe Life Exp (yrs) 65.6 75.1 78.9 81.5

Total Fertility Rate 2.65 1.5 1.65 1.8

S. America Life Exp (yrs) 52 73 77.1 79.8

Total Fertility Rate 5.66 2.18 1.76 1.8

N. America Life Exp (yrs) 68.8 79.3 81.6 83.5

Total Fertility Rate 3.33 2.04 1.84 1.85

Oceania Life Exp (yrs) 60.4 76.4 79.7 82.1

Total Fertility Rate 3.83 2.44 2.18 1.98

World Life Expectancy (yrs) 46.6 67.6 72.1 75.5

Total Fertility Rate 4.92 2.56 2.21 2.02

Notes: a. Life expectancy at birth in years, both sexes combined; b. Total fertility rate: children per woman.

Source: Author’s calculations based on United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: 2008 Revision, Medium variant,

http://esa.un.org/unpp January 2011.

It is also clear from the UN statistics in Table 1 and 2 that ‘less developed’ regions of the globe are

also ageing. With the notable exception of some parts of the Middle East, the demographic changes

that took 150-200 years and more in Western Europe and North America are occurring today at a

much accelerated rate in developing countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa, including in many

of the ‘less developed’ regions and poorest countries (9, 10). Economic development, although still

apparent in the rising incomes of many previously less developed countries, may today be less central

than previously. Education, public health measures, access to health care and contraception, and other

factors such as increased food production are now able to provide much of what once only available

through the distribution of the surpluses that were the product of successful economic development

(11). The causative link between economic development and ageing is thus clear when we look back

through recent history. The economic impact of the much higher proportions of older people

projected for the next forty years, however, remains more contentious.

3. Apocalyptic Economics?

The view that new and projected demographic profile are unsustainable, the cause of existing and

future conflict between generations that will reshape both national and global order finds support

today in many reports and popular books. An interesting example is the report on global ageing

published by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2001 that examined the demographic

challenges and assessed how these are translated into ‘security issues of interest to the United States’

(12: 3). Population ageing is portrayed as having far-reaching negative fiscal and economic effects on

global economic, military and political power. An important strand of the CIA’s analysis concerns

the economic impacts of sustaining large and non-productive surplus populations. With the public

debt rising in ageing countries as social spending increases to meet the entitlements of the increasing

5

number of elderly, the report argued that pressure would increase on interest rates, crowding out

productive investment.

Focussing more on the implications for individuals, families governments and corporations, Fishman

(13) develops many of the same themes. He argues that ageing is the ‘hidden force’ behind

globalisation, as corporations move production from ageing countries with high labour costs to

countries with low cost youthful workforces. Ageing is also portrayed as the cause of falling

expenditures on public education and of the degraded, casualised employment on offer to younger

generations, the most recent entrants to the labour force. The need to underwrite the support provided

older people, he maintains, holds back families, communities and national governments and is causing

problems for younger generations deprived of resources as older generations, especially the ‘baby-

boomers’ born in the decades after WWII, lead privileged lives, commandeering resources that are

needed elsewhere. This reiterates Thomson’s highly controversial analysis of New Zealand social

policy (14). The approach reflects what other commentators have termed ‘intergenerational conflict’

(15, 16).

Like many other accounts of what has been dubbed ‘apocalyptic demography’ (17, 18) Fishman and

the CIA see population ageing as involving the support of large numbers of dependent, unproductive,

older people. Ageing in this view represents a form of depleted and burdensome negative human

capital, youth as the source of vitality. The analysis condemns many of the ideas such as

redistribution and public risk sharing that underlie social policy in most advanced economies and

ignores issues such as the economic value of public and private savings for old age and retirement ,

and the positive contributions of older people within the family.

These analyses present political and personal views as impartial assessments. They do this by

drawing together data on population projections with value judgements that see in ageing a form of

dependency and waste, in which vitality and productivity is linked simply to youth. These

assessments are then linked to specific issues or social case studies in a manner that is portrayed as

objective but which in fact conceals the value component of their assessments. Without a sound

theoretical and analytic framework, the results of such accounts are at best problematic.

A number of economic studies address this by measuring the impact of demographic change on

projections of specific macroeconomic variables. Perhaps most well known are econometric studies

that focus on the aggregate impact of specific demographic variables such as dependency rates on

aggregate savings or investment (19). Using a variant of this approach, the IMF used data from 115

countries, to identify strong negative impact of the elderly dependency ratio on savings and the

current account balance (20). McKibben, in contrast, developed a regionally based global economic

model (a version of what he terms ‘the MSG-Cubed model’) incorporating demographic dynamics, to

examine the consequences of demographic change on the world economy from 2005 to 2050 (21, 22).

The model is informed by extensive data on a significant number of economic variables and recent

economic behaviour in each country or region included in the model, so for example, rather than

assuming that all males work till the age of 65, changes in earnings at different ages are used in the

model to compute more accurate projections. The results show that ageing will have macroeconomic

impacts (both positive and negative) on economies at the domestic level as well as through global

feedbacks affecting ‘growth, trade flows, asset prices (real interest rate and real exchange rates) and

investment rates’ (21: 121). Like other economic modelling, however, the results are directly affected

by the assumptions inherent in the data and the mathematical modelling and the authors point to the

need for further work refining these assumptions.

4. Intergenerational approaches

Assumptions about economic exchanges between people at different ages are a key problem facing

economists estimating future economic impacts. Intergenerational perspectives that purposefully

address these exchanges hold the promise of a more systematic and reliable approach to the topic.

Although Mannheim pointed to the importance of generations from a socio-historical perspective as

early as 1924 (23), generational analysis is a relatively new and still emerging conceptual approach

6

(24). The concepts of ‘generation’ and ‘inter-generational’, are new, imprecise and often confusing

terms, especially when applied to the public field (25). They are nevertheless frequently asserted as

self-explanatory analytic frameworks for addressing issues concerning relationships between and the

transmission of values, resources and assistance between what is probably better thought of as age

cohorts. The terms are used, often interchangeably, in a variety of disciplines and at different social

levels, their coverage extending from a concern with micro-relationships within family systems , to

macro historical level analyses of political and economic change (26-29).

Perhaps the most influential application to date in economics and public policy has been that termed

‘Generational Accounting’ (GA), based on an economic forecasting model developed by Laurence

Kotlikoff and colleagues in the US (1, 30, 31). The model provides a theory of generational costs and

expenditures and a methodology to analyse taxation, public expenditure and taxation transfers

between age groups now and into the future. The combination of demographic calculations with

economic projections and forecasts provides convincing economic data with which to address public

debates about public expenditure and ageing, although questions need to be raised about the value of

many economic projections and the validity of the demographic categories and assumptions built into

the approach. Nevertheless, as Williamson and Rhodes (31: 50) show, the approach has been

enormously influential in the US and internationally, not least because ‘the proponents of the model

were particularly adept at addressing popular and academic audiences simultaneously.’ A widely read

book by Koltikoff and Burns (32) for example, used GA projections to advocate sweeping cuts to

social security and other welfare programs, a theme that influenced and resonated strongly with

national politics under George Bush in the USA at the time.

A common criticism of the GA approach is that it plays into the popular culture by homogenising

entire ‘generations’ and portraying them as unified and as conscious and purely self-interested

political actors. This ignores inequalities within generations, treating all baby boomers, for example,

alike and attributing to them policies which often developed independently and with which many

would disagree. The extensive inequality within generations (such as between independently wealthy

older landlords and older private tenants dependent on minimal public pensions) and the need for and

extent of redistribution within as well as between generations is completely obscured. Similarly, the

very substantial proportion of national budgets that are not raised directly from individual taxpayers

but derive from corporate taxes, royalties on minerals and so forth is ignored, as are the costs of many

hidden transfers, in particular tax expenditures, the public income forgone through tax concessions

(33, 34). As Williamson and Rhodes (31: 48) note, the GA approach is embraced by those who use

the results of the projections as arguments to bolster their case for cutting social spending. Most

progressive economic analysts reject narrowly defined concepts such as the innocent sounding

‘intergenerational equity’ which represents the single minded pursuit of equal expenditures between

age cohorts, in favour of policies that promote equity on an ‘intra-generational’ basis, therefore taking

into account the need to address and reduce inequalities based on income, class, ethnicity, race and

gender across as well as within age categories.

In Australia, the GA approach has been promoted by the Australian Treasurers under the Charter of

Budget Honesty Act (1998) (35) in line with OECD advice (36). The first Intergenerational Report

(37) was issued as Budget Paper 5 in 2002 by treasurer Costello. A second less pessimistic report was

issued in 2007, again under Costello (38). Each showed projected fiscal pressures attributed to the

impact of population ageing under existing and projected policies. Costello used these two reports to

justify cut backs in national programs and to argue for transferring the risk from government funded

programs by cutting taxes and leaving individuals to fund their own support. Australia’s introduction

to the approach was thus as a fiscal framework promoting privatisation and risk shifting towards

individuals, promoting increased reliance on the market and decreased responsibility for public

provision.

The third report (39) issued under Treasurer Swan was more optimistic, although still projecting

budget deficits based on the cost of ageing. The main public message concerned the importance of

continuing immigration as a moderator of population ageing. Interestingly, the date at which public

deficits related to ageing was extended in each subsequent report: from 2014, then 2024, due to ‘due

to a lower rate of growth of projected spending per person and higher projected nominal GDP per

7

person’ (38: 80). By the third report, age related deficits are projected, but not before 2030. Despite

the different results, the message in each of the reports is that population ageing is a problem for the

economy and that social expenditures need to be continually reviewed and constrained.

Generational Economy Framework

Providing what they term ‘a global approach’ to the issue, Lee and Mason (2, 40) have gone well

beyond GA in the development of the ‘Generational Economy’ (GE) framework. Their focus is not

confined to public expenditures in advanced economies, but to familial as well as public transfers in

developed, developing and traditional economies. Their approach considers income, savings and

consumption spending in families as well as in national accounts (2). The GE theoretical framework

is used to drawing together data on what they term ‘intergenerational’ aspects of earnings,

consumption, spending, savings and transfers over the ‘life cycle’ in a range of different economic

settings, from traditional hunter-gather societies to contemporary economies at different levels of

development, operating under a wide range of political systems (41). The approach has been adopted

by the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs and promoted as the methodology for the

National Transfer Accounts program (42).

The essence of their methodology is based on ‘a generational perspective’ in which two important

concepts, ‘life-cycle wealth’ and ‘transfer wealth’ are central (2). Reliance on income created through

labour and the need to support those at different points in their life course (in particular early

childhood and old age) who are unable to produce their own income, they argue, has led to the

development of intergenerational social responses that differ between societies. To examine how this

operates in practice in different economies, the GE approach calculates the average age of earnings

and of consumption and uses this to compare wealth transfers in public and private transactions. In

this view, private transfer wealth is a form of familial support exchanged between generations, whilst

public wealth transfer involves the sorts of income support and other programs that social policy in

developed economies. Their calculations are presented in a series graphs and figures that graphically

demonstrate the direction of transfers between generations.

Although it is not possible to do cover all aspects of this work in a short article, the authors’ summary

of a number of their key findings is concise and significant:

Private transfers flow strongly downward in every society, whereas the net direction of public transfers is

downward (old to young) in some societies and upward in others (mostly rich). Total transfers, the sum

of public and private, flow downward in almost all countries, implying that modestly older age structures

would be economically advantageous. However, the low fertility that prevails in many rich countries

today will lead to much older age structures and a reversal in the direction of total transfers. For them,

higher fertility and younger age structures will be advantageous (43: 80-81).

Because ageing is associated with savings and the accumulation of resources, the finding that there is

a net transfer of resources from older generations towards younger ones within the family is not

surprising. It is only in the public sphere of advanced welfare states that there is evidence of a flow of

resources the other way, and even then it is neither inevitable nor necessarily detrimental. Indeed,

when both public and private transfers are taken into account, the global NTA results to date suggest

that ‘modestly older age structures may be economically advantageous’ (my emphasis).

It would be foolish to think that these findings are final or that they can or should allay all concerns

about the economic impact of population ageing. The GE approach is limited by the available data,

the System of National Accounts on which they are based, which provide only a cross-sectional

snapshot of annual transfers, and often this is limited by reliance on national data supplemented by

survey and other data to fill in gaps concerning issues such as family transfers(42: vi-vii). There are

also technical problems concerning the unit of analysis, the household or the individual, and there are

serious omissions in the data, in particular the failure to include many important unpaid home based

production activities, such as cooking, childcare or elder care. Other informal and unpaid work,

including volunteering, is also not included. In addition to household production, the authors also

identify limitations and challenges in a number of other dimensions, including gender and time use,

and in the inclusion of inequality and poverty (42: 52-53).

8

5. Conclusion – generational policy options?

Although it sounds systematic and comprehensive to deploy an intergenerational approach to the

estimation of the economic impacts of ageing, the current approaches each demonstrate significant

limitations. Importantly, many of the critiques of GA also apply to the GE approach. Generations are

not homogenous and equal social groupings – indeed it is only within the family that it is possible to

clearly identify one generation from the next. Across societies issues of inequality powerfully divide

people of similar ages and are arguably more important than differences based purely on age. The

need to provide support to the disadvantaged and the socially excluded has been fundamentally

important for social policy over the past century in advanced economies and necessarily entails a

degree of transfer of resources (redistribution) between those of similar ages as well as across

different points in their life course.

Significant issues of social difference, including gender, disability, ethnicity and personal capacity are

obscured in the existing intergenerational economic frameworks, but continue to remain important.

Policies based on reducing social expenditure and transferring costs to private households risk

increasing problems that the original measures were set up to overcome. When such decisions are

based largely on projected deficits linked to demographic ageing, there are good reasons to be

particularly cautious.

Just as it is important to acknowledge the limits of the concept of generations, it is necessary to point

to problems in assumptions concerning ‘generational capture’ of resources. There is no evidence that

older age groups act as unified political actors in any way comparable, for example, to the way that

social classes were held to act in support of political programs that were in their common interest

(29). This may be because voters do not simply act selfishly but instead make political choices on the

basis of complex social affiliations and lifelong identities. Older landlords who earn income from

rental property they own, for example, are likely to make different choices to older renters. Similarly,

voters who are grandparents are unlikely to vote in ways that might permanently damage their grand

children.

The evidence reviewed in this paper demonstrates that economic growth and ageing have historically

been closely linked. However one dimensional analyses that see ageing simply as a cost obscure and

confuse our understanding of the challenges of adapting to an unprecedented demography in which

old age will become more common place than ever before. Intergenerational economic analyses hold

the promise of overcoming these limitations by identifying the dependencies and capabilities at

different ages from a life course perspective, open up aspects of policy and family life related to the

life course in a way that focussing on ageing as a stand alone issue will never be able to achieve.

While there are many promising elements in the sophisticated approach of generational economics,

the current intergenerational frameworks are not capable of providing a reliable picture of the future

economic costs and benefits of population ageing.

References

1. Kotlikoff LJ. Generational Accounting: Knowing Who Pays, and When, for What We Spend.

New York The Free Press.; 1992.

2. Lee RD, Mason A. 'Generational Economics in a Changing World'. Population and

Development Review. 2011;37(Supplement):115-42.

3. Heran F. 'The Population Ageing Process in Global Perspective'. In: McDaniel SA, Zimmer

Z, editors. Global Ageing in the Twenty-First Century Challenges, Opportunities and Implications.

Farnham: Ashgate; 2013. p. 13-32.

4. Lee R. 'The Demographic Transition: Three Centuries of Fundamental Change'. The Journal

of Economic Perspectives. 2003 10/01;17(4):167-90.

9

5. Victor C. 'The demography of ageing'. In: Dannefer D, Phillipson C, editors. The SAGE

Handbook of Social Gerontology. Los Angeles: SAGE; 2010. p. 61-74.

6. van de Kaa D. 'The Second Demographic Transition'. Population Bulletin. 1987;42(1):3-57.

7. Olshansky SJ. 'The demography of aging'. In: Cassel CK, Liepzig RM, Cohen HJ, Larson EB,

Meier DE, Capello CF, editors. Geriatric Medicine: An evidence-based approach (4th Ed). N.Y.:

Springer; 2004. p. 37-44.

8. Phillipson C. Ageing. Cambridge: Polity Press; 2013.

9. U.N. World Population Ageing 2013. New York: United Nations, Department of Economic

and Social Affairs, Population Division.2013 Contract No.: ST/ESA/SER.A/348.

10. Lloyd-Sherlock P. Population Ageing and International Development. Bristol: Policy Press;

2010.

11. McMichael T. Human Frontiers, Environments and Disease. Past patterns, uncertain

futures. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.; 2001.

12. CIA. Long-Term Global Demographic Trends: Reshaping the Geopolitical Landscape.

Washington: Central Intelligence Agency 2001 15 December 2004.

13. Fishman TC. Shock of Gray. The Aging of the world's population and how it pits young

against old, child against parent, worker against boss, company against rival and nation against

nation. New York: Scribner; 2010.

14. Thomson D. Selfish generations? The ageing of New Zealand's welfare state. Wellington: B

Williams Books; 1991.

15. Hudson RB, editor. The New Politics of Old Age Policy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University

Press, (2nd Ed); 2010.

16. Myles J. 'What justice requires: Normative foundations for U.S. pension reform '. In: Hudson

RB, editor. The New Politics of Old Age Policy (2nd Ed) Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press;

2010. p. 64-86.

17. Evans RG, McGrail KM, Morgan SG, Barer ML, Hertzman C. 'Apocalypse No: Population

Aging and the Future of Health Care Systems'. Canadian Journal on Aging. 2001 summerm

2001;20(supplement 1):160-91.

18. Robertson A. 'Beyond Apocalyptic Demography: Towards a Moral Economy of

Interdependence.'. Ageing & Society. 1997 July 1997;17(4):425-46.

19. Higgins M. 'The Demographic Determinants of Savings, Investment, and International

Capital Flows'. International Economic Review. 1998;39(2):343–69.

20. IMF. World Economic Outlook: September 2004. Washington, D.C: International Monetary

Fund.2004.

21. McKibbin WJ. 'The Global Macroeconomic Consequences of a Demographic Transition'.

Asian economic papers. 2006;5(1):92-134.

22. Batini N, Callen T, McKibbin W. The Global Impact of Demographic Change. Washington?:

International Monetary Fund2006 Contract No.: WP/06/9.

23. Mannheim K. 'The Sociological Problem of Generations (Originally published 1924)'. In:

Mannheim K, editor. Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge. UK: Taylor and Francis Books 1998.

24. Vanderven K. 'The Road to Intergenerational Theory is Under Construction: A Continuing

Story'. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships. 2011 2011/02/25;9(1):22-36.

25. Luscher K, Hoff A, lamura G, Renzi M, Sanchez M, Viry G, et al. Generations,

intergenerational relationships, generational policy. A multilingual compendium. Konstanz:

International Network for the Study of Intergenerational Issues (INSII)2014.

26. Biggs S. 'Thinking about Generations: Conceptual Positions and Policy Implications'. Journal

of Social Issues. 2007 12;63(4):695-711.

27. Walker A, Fong F. 'Relations Between the Generations: Uniting the Macro and the Micro'.

Journal of Intergenerational Relationships. 2010 2010/11/24;8(4):425-30.

28. Timonen V, Scharf T, Conlon C, Carney G. 'Intergenerational Solidarity and Justice in

Ireland: Toward a New National Dialogue'. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships.

2012;10(3):317-21.

29. Kohli M. 'Generations in Aging Socieities: Inequalities, cleavages, conflicts'. In: Torp C,

editor. Challenges of Aging: Retirement, Pensions, and Intergenerational Justice. Basingstoke:

Palgrave Macmillan; in publication.

10

30. Auerbach AJ, Gokhale J, Kotlikoff LJ. 'Generational accounting: A meaningful way to

evaluate fiscal policy'. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 1994;8(1):73-94.

31. Williamson JB, Rhodes A. 'A critical assessment of generational accounting and its

contribution to the generational equity debate'. International Journal of Ageing and Later Life.

2011;6(1):33-57.

32. Kotlikoff LJ, Burns S. The Coming Generational Storm. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press;

2004.

33. Betts K. The ageing of the Australian population: triumph or disaster? Melbourne: Monash

Centre for Population and Urban Research2014.

34. Stebbing A, Spies-Butcher B. 'Universal Welfare by ‘Other Means’? Social Tax Expenditures

and the Australian Dual Welfare State'. Journal of Social Policy. 2010;39(04):585-606.

35. Charter of Budget Honesty Act 1998, (1998).

36. OECD. Paying for the Past, Providing for the Future: Intergenerational Solidarity. Paris, 2-3

May 20112011.

37. Treasury. Intergenerational Report, 2002-03 Budget Paper No. 5. Canberra: Department of

Treasury, Australia2002.

38. Treasury. Intergenerational Report 2007. Canberra: Department of Treasury, Australia2007.

39. Treasury. Intergenerational Report 2010. Australia to 2050: future challenges. Canberra:

Department of Treasury, Australia2010.

40. Lee RD, Mason A, editors. Population Aging and the Generational Economy. A Global

Perspective. Ottowa:: Edward Elgar, IDRC 2011.

41. Lee R, editor. How Population Aging Affects the Macroeconomy. (Paper presented at) Panel

on Demographics, Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium on Re-Evaluating Labor Market

Dynamics; 2014; Kansas.

42. U.N. National Transfer Accounts Manual: Measuring and Analysing the Generational

Economy. New York: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population

Division.2013 Contract No.: ST/ESA/SER.A/348.

43. Lee R, Mason A. 'Lifecycles, support systems, and generational flows: patterns and change'.

In: Lee RD, Mason A, editors. Population Aging and the Generational Economy A Global

Perspective Ottowa: Edward Elgar, IDRC; 2011. p. 79-106.