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National Transfer Accounts Project
HomeAbout NTAMethodologyNTA CountriesPublicationsMeetings and Presentations- External LinksCEDAEast-West CenterUN ECLAC NTANUPRIAERC- Contact Us | What's NewRecent Events EWC Conference on Population and the Generational Economy, Honolulu, June 11-12, 2010 African NTA Workshop, Cape Town, South Africa, April 25 - May 1, 2010 European NTA Workshop, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, February 25-26, 2010 Latin American NTA Seminar on Population Aging, Intergenerational Transfers, and Social Protection. For more information see Meetings and Presentations Summary of Results Per capita age profiles of the life cycle deficit (LCD) for selected African countries. LCD is defined as the difference between consumption and labor income at each age. Lifecycle deficits occur when labor income is less than consumption and lifecycle surpluses when labor income exceeds consumption.
For the rest of NTA countries, go to Selected Preliminary Results Canada, Colombia and Jamaica Join the NTA Project During the recent Summer Seminar, the NTA Project welcomed three new countries: Canada, Colombia, and Jamaica to the team. Dr. Marcel Merette, Dr. Patrick Georges, Zhang Qi, and Liu Yuan of the University of Ottawa, Canada; Drs. Jorge Tovar and Piedad Urdinola of Colombia; and Maurice Harris of Jamaica will construct the NTA for their respective country. Argentina Joins the NTA Project We welcome Dr. Rafael Rofman (Buenos Aires Office of the World Bank), Dr. Jorge Paz (Instituto de Estudios Laborales y del Desarrollo Economico- Labor Studies and Economic Development Institute, the National University of Salta), and Dr. Pablo Comelatto (Centro de Estudios de Poblacion) to the NTA Project. They will work on constructing the NTA for Argentina. United Kingdom Joins the NTA Project We welcome Dr. David McCarthy and Dr. James Sefton, both of Imperial College Business School, London, to the NTA Project. They will work on constructing the NTA for the United Kingdom. Recent Publications Ronald Lee and Andrew Mason. 2010 Generational Economics in a Changing World. Presented at a meeting on the long-term consequences of the demographic transition held in Madrid, Spain in September 2009. Currently under review of a special issue of Population and Development Review. Abstract: Hunter-gatherers evolved a life strategy of food sharing within and across generations, including transferring surplus food to children to support their long period of nutritional dependency. In intensive agriculture, the elderly became net consumers, when they were sustained in part by food transfers from their adult children. At the same time, assets became more important, providing an alternative support for the retired. These trends continued as agriculture gave way to industry. A growing public sector reinforced downward transfers with public education and health care for children. With development, transfers to the elderly became increasingly important, their fiscal effect exacerbated by aging populations. At the same time, the growth of capital and financial institutions provided new forms of asset accumulation along with private pensions. These two trends reduced the role of the family in providing for the elderly. Our evolved sociality is now expressed through welfare state redistributive programs, and intensifying public and private investment in children. But population aging and more public programs for the elderly has led to a reversal in the direction of resource flows from downward to upward. The old age dependency ratio is projected to double or triple in coming decades in the rich industrial countries, and the public costs of the elderly may increasingly compete with investments in children through the public sector budget constraint. It remains to be seen whether the elderly will opt to work until older ages, and whether the rapid growth of health care expenditures will be restrained. Jorge Bravo and Mauricio Holz. 2009. National transfer Accounts: Concepts and Some Examples from Latin America and Asia. Presented at the Seminar on Family Support Networks and Population Ageing, 3-4 June 2009. Abstract: National Transfer Accounts (NTAs) measure, at the aggregate level, reallocations of economic resources between persons of different ages. Resources can be reallocated between individuals, usually within the family, as when working-age adults provide support to their dependent children or their elderly parents. Resources are also reallocated by the public sector through the collection of taxes and government spending on public education for children, for example, or on public pensions for the elderly. Asset-based reallocations are also important. These consist of the accumulation and use of financial and physical assets over a person’s life-cycle. In many societies, working adults accumulate assets, which they use later to support themselves in old age. In Chile, more than 60 percent of all transfers occur within families. Most are transfers from working-age adults to children, adolescents, and young adults. Adults older than 70 years do not provide significant resources to others, but neither do they rely on transfers as a significant source of economic support. The government provides substantial resources to the elderly in the form of health care and social security programs, and the elderly also draw capital income from their asset holdings. A comparison of aggregate data for Latin America (Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Uruguay) and Asia (Japan, Republic of Korea, and Taiwan, Province of China) shows that children receive more public transfers in Asia, largely in the form of public education programs. As in Chile, the elderly in Latin America as a whole tend to rely more heavily than in Asia on public transfers to support their old age. In both Latin America and Asia, the elderly receive significant support from assets saved during their working years. |
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