IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ifs/fistud/v27y2006i2p183-203.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Population ageing, fiscal pressure and tax smoothing: a CGE application to Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Ross Guest

Abstract

This paper analyses the fiscal pressure from population ageing using an intertemporal CGE model, applied to Australia, and compares the results with those of a recent government-commissioned study. The latter study uses an alternative modelling approach based on extrapolation rather than optimising behaviour of consumers and firms. The deadweight losses from the fiscal pressure caused by population ageing are equivalent to an annual loss of consumption of $260 per person per year in 2003 dollars in the balanced-budget scenario. A feasible degree of tax smoothing would reduce this welfare loss by an equivalent of $70 per person per year. Unlike the extrapolation-based model, the CGE approach takes account of feedback effects of ageing-induced tax increases on consumption and labour supply, which in turn impact on the ultimate magnitude of fiscal pressure and therefore tax increases. However, a counterfactual simulation suggests that the difference in terms of deadweight losses between the two modelling approaches is modest, at about $30 per person per year.

Suggested Citation

  • Ross Guest, 2006. "Population ageing, fiscal pressure and tax smoothing: a CGE application to Australia," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 27(2), pages 183-203, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:ifs:fistud:v:27:y:2006:i:2:p:183-203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John Creedy & Jamas Enright & Norman Gemmell & Angela Mellish, 2010. "Population ageing and taxation in New Zealand," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(2), pages 137-158.
    2. Woodland, A., 2016. "Taxation, Pensions, and Demographic Change," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 713-780, Elsevier.
    3. Lin, Gaoyi & Ma, Liuding & Liao, Hui & Li, Jingying, 2024. "Nothing comes for free: Evidence from a tax reduction of China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    4. Nick Draper & Alex Armstrong, 2007. "GAMMA; a simulation model for ageing, pensions and public finances," CPB Document 147, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    5. Jianguo Zhao & Lei Zhang, 2023. "Fiscal Expenditure Efficiency Measurement and Its Convergence Analysis on Aging Undertakings in China: Based on a Global Super-Efficiency Slacks-Based Measure Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-21, January.
    6. Ross Guest, 2008. "Smoothing the Fiscal Costs of Population Ageing in Australia: Effects on Intergenerational Equity and Social Welfare," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 84(265), pages 177-192, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ifs:fistud:v:27:y:2006:i:2:p:183-203. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emma Hyman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifsssuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.