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Edgar Vogel
- 28 August 2015
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 165Details
- Abstract
- This paper analyses the challenges that high public debt and ageing populations pose to medium-term growth. First, macroeconometric model simulations suggest that medium-term growth can benefit from credible fiscal consolidation, partly through reductions in sovereign risk premia. Second, a disaggregated growth accounting exercise suggests that the impact of population ageing on medium-term growth can be mitigated by structural reforms boosting labour force participation. Finally, general equilibrium models suggest that pay-as-you-go public pension systems will require reforms combining lower benefits, a later retirement age and higher social contributions. These findings suggest several policy recommendations: (a)
- JEL Code
- E17 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→General Aggregative Models→Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
E23 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Production
E24 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Employment, Unemployment, Wages, Intergenerational Income Distribution, Aggregate Human Capital
E62 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook→Fiscal Policy
F47 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance→Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
J1 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Demographic Economics
- 18 December 2014
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1753Details
- Abstract
- Using individual data from the Eurosystem
- JEL Code
- D44 : Microeconomics→Market Structure and Pricing→Auctions
D53 : Microeconomics→General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium→Financial Markets
D84 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Expectations, Speculations
E43 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
E50 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→General
G10 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→General
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
- 4 August 2014
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1705Details
- Abstract
- We extend household-level data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey using aggregate series and micro-simulations to investigate heterogeneity in the euro area. We quantify shocks to wealth, income and financial pressure faced by various categories of households since the onset of the Great Recession. The shocks differ substantially both across countries and across economic and socio-demographic characteristics. We find that the rising unemployment rate disproportionately affected the income-poor, while the declining wealth the income-rich. Although borrowers benefited from the substantial decrease in interest rates, debt service-income and debt-income ratios for poor households went up as they faced falling incomes. Household deleveraging was primarily driven by the restrained mortgage borrowing by the young. In several countries and at the euro-area level the unprecedented declines in asset prices substantially contributed to the sluggish consumption growth driven by both rich and poor households: while the former were hit by large shocks to wealth, the latter also significantly cut their spending because of their high MPCs.
- JEL Code
- D12 : Microeconomics→Household Behavior and Family Economics→Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
D31 : Microeconomics→Distribution→Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
E21 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Consumption, Saving, Wealth - Network
- Household Finance and Consumption Network (HFCN)
- 2 April 2014
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1665Details
- Abstract
- We calibrate an incomplete markets large scale OLG model to the US income and wealth distribution and examine the effects of alternative government debt levels and adjustment policies on macroeconomic aggregates and welfare. We find that the government should hold negative debt. Due to the high degree of wealth and income dispersion ex ante lifetime utility increases with increasing wages (falling interest rates) by around 6% of lifetime consumption at optimal debt levels. The optimal level depends on the adjustment policy can vary by up to 70% of GDP (between -180% and -110%). With lower government debt, high income/wealth agents are always worse off. Adjusting transfers benefits the lowest income/wealth group. The largest gains are, however, experienced by agents in the middle of the income/wealth distribution: they benefit from higher wages and transfers but do not lose too much capital income.
- JEL Code
- C54 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric Modeling→Quantitative Policy Modeling
D52 : Microeconomics→General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium→Incomplete Markets
D6 : Microeconomics→Welfare Economics
E2 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy
H2 : Public Economics→Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
H6 : Public Economics→National Budget, Deficit, and Debt
- 24 September 2012
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1476Details
- Abstract
- Projected demographic changes in industrialized countries will reduce the share of the working-age population. Analyses based on standard OLG models predict that these changes will increase the capital- labor ratio. Hence, rates of return to capital decrease and wages increase with adverse welfare consequences for current middle aged asset rich agents. This paper addresses three important adjustments channels to dampen these detrimental effects of demographic change: investing abroad, endogenous human capital formation and increasing the retirement age. Our quantitative finding is that openness has a relatively mild effect. In contrast, endogenous human capital formation in combination with an increase in the retirement age has strong effects. Under these adjustments maximum welfare losses of demographic change for households alive in 2010 are reduced by about 3 percentage points.
- JEL Code
- C68 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Mathematical Methods, Programming Models, Mathematical and Simulation Modeling→Computable General Equilibrium Models
E17 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→General Aggregative Models→Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
E25 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Aggregate Factor Income Distribution
J11 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Demographic Economics→Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
J24 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Demand and Supply of Labor→Human Capital, Skills, Occupational Choice, Labor Productivity