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Working Paper
The burden of German unification: a generational accounting approach
An assessment of the generational stance of postunification German fiscal policy and an estimate of the burden of unification-related fiscal measures on West German generations, finding that future generations will bear much larger lifetime net tax burdens than current newborns.
Journal Article
Population aging and fiscal policy in Europe and the United States
The authors report each country's total intertemporal public liability as the sum of its explicit outstanding debt and the present values of its implicit liabilities--the excess of projected transfers and government purchases over tax revenues. They find rapid, persistent population aging in almost every European country. They also calculate that for European countries with the highest implicit liabilities, eliminating total intertemporal liabilities would require tax increases exceeding 4 percent of GDP. Compared to Europe, the future challenges of population aging and fiscal problems in the ...