The National Transfer Accounts (NTA) project is developing a system to measure economic flows across age groups in a manner consistent with National Income and Product Accounts. The accounts measure how each age group produces, consumes, shares, and saves resources. Two forms of economic flow are distinguished, transfers between age groups and the use of assets accumulated earlier in life. These flows arise primarily because of a fundamental feature of the economic lifecycle: children and the elderly consume more than they produce through their labor. NTA provides estimates of the components of the economic lifecycle and the interage flows that inevitably arise. These flows occur through government programs and through families and other private institutions.
When complete National Transfer Accounts will provide estimates with sufficient historical depth to study the evolution of intergenerational transfer systems; the consequences of alternative approaches to age reallocations embodied in public policy with respect to pensions, health care, education and social institutions, e.g., the extended family; and the social, political, and economic implications of population aging.
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