Uncertain Demographics and Fiscal Sustainability

Juha M. Alho is Professor of Statistics at University of Joensuu, Finland. He is the author (with Bruce D. Spencer) of Statistical Demography and Forecasting (2005) and a former president of the Finnish Society of Biostatistics. Svend E. Hougaard Jensen is Managing Director of the Copenhagen-based Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR), Professor of Economics at the University of Southern Denmark at Odense, a research associate at the Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at the University of Copenhagen and a member of Danish Council for Research Policy. Jukka Lassila is Research Director at the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA) in Helsinki. He has coordinated several international research projects concerning population ageing and is currently scientific coordinator in the EU 5th Framework research project 'Demographic uncertainty and the sustainability of social welfare systems'.

• List of figures; List of tables; List of contributors; Preface; 1. Introduction Juha M. Alho, Svend E. Hougaard Jensen and Jukka Lassila; Part I. Uncertain Demographics: 2. Changing views of future demographic trends Nico Keilman, Harri Cruijsen, and Juha M. Alho; 3. Empirically-based specification of forecast uncertainty Juha M. Alho, Harri Cruijsen and Nico Keilman; Comment: the UPE forecasts: strengths, innovations, developments Shripad Tuljapurkar; Part II. Measuring Sustainability in a Stochastic Environment: 4. Fiscal implications of demographic uncertainty: comparisons across the European Union Martin Weale; 5. Demographic uncertainty and pension projections Jukka Lassila and Tarmo Valkonen; 6. Demographic uncertainty and health care expenditure Namkee Ahn; Comment: assessing the uncertainty in long-term fiscal projections Pablo Antolin; Part III. Enhancing Sustainability: 7. Evaluating pension reforms in the German context Hans Fehr and Christian Habermann; 8. Longevity adjustment of pension benefits Jukka Lassila and Tarmo Valkonen; 9. Ageing, demographic uncertainty and optimal fiscal policy Alex Armstrong, Nick Draper, André Nibbelink and Ed Westerhout; Comment: computable equilibrium models in policy analysis: future directions D. Peter Broer; Part IV. Extensions: 10. Macroeconomic consequences of demographic uncertainty in world regions Vladimir Borgy and Juha M. Alho; 11. Informational assumptions, aggregate mortality risk and life cycle saving Juha M. Alho and Niku Määttänen; 12. Longevity adjustment of retirement age and intergenerational risk sharing Svend E. Hougaard Jensen and Ole Hagen Jørgensen; 13. A general equilibrium analysis of annuity rates in the presence of aggregate mortality risk Justin van de Ven and Martin Weale; Comment: the economics of demographic uncertainty Martin Flodén; Index.

'In this volume economists for the first time come to grips with the substantial impact of demographic uncertainty on the economy and public finances. It contains not only important methodological contributions but also provides fresh insights on how demographic risks can best be shared across generations.' Lans Bovenberg, Director, Netspar, Tilburg University