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Population Ageing and the Efficiency of Fiscal Policy in New Zealand

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Abstract

New Zealand’s ageing population is expected to have a significant impact on long-term government expenditure, particularly in the areas of health and superannuation. Recent projections from Treasury’s Long-Term Fiscal Model suggest that, under current policy settings, government expenditure (excluding financing costs) will increase by approximately seven percentage points of GDP by 2050. From the perspective of economic efficiency, we consider several methods for financing that expenditure. We find that tax smoothing is significantly more efficient, from a welfare perspective, than balancing the budget. This result is primarily due to our assumption that the assets accumulated under tax smoothing earn an average return over the government’s cost of borrowing. This excess return is not without risk. By modelling asset returns and economic growth in a stochastic manner we find that tax smoothing with a diversified portfolio of financial instruments may also reduce year-on-year tax rate volatility. Introducing practical considerations, in particular expenditure creep (where additional government spending is triggered by an improving balance sheet position), tips the scales in favour of a balanced budget approach. Hence, strong fiscal institutions are a prerequisite for achieving the welfare gains from tax smoothing.

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  • Nick Davis & Richard Fabling, 2002. "Population Ageing and the Efficiency of Fiscal Policy in New Zealand," Treasury Working Paper Series 02/11, New Zealand Treasury.
    • Handle: RePEc:nzt:nztwps:02/11
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    File URL: https://treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2007-09/twp02-11.pdf
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. John Creedy & Kathleen Makale, 2014. "Social expenditure in New Zealand: Stochastic projections," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(2), pages 196-208, August.
    2. Christopher Ball & John Creedy & Grant Scobie, 2015. "Long-run Fiscal Projections under Uncertainty: The Case of New Zealand," Treasury Working Paper Series 15/10, New Zealand Treasury.
    3. Christopher Ball & John Creedy, 2014. "Tax policy with uncertain future costs: Some simple models," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(2), pages 240-253, August.
    4. John Creedy & Grant Scobie, 2017. "Debt projections and fiscal sustainability with feedback effects," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(3), pages 237-261, September.
    5. Christopher Ball & John Creedy & Grant Scobie, 2015. "Long-run Fiscal Projections under Uncertainty: The Case of New Zealand," Treasury Working Paper Series 15/10, New Zealand Treasury.
    6. Christopher Ball & John Creedy, 2014. "Tax policy with uncertain future costs: Some simple models," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(2), pages 240-253, August.
    7. John Creedy & Grant M Scobie, 2002. "Population Ageing and Social Expenditure in New Zealand: Stochastic Projections," Treasury Working Paper Series 02/28, New Zealand Treasury.
    8. John Creedy & Kathleen Makale, 2014. "Social expenditure in New Zealand: Stochastic projections," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(2), pages 196-208, August.
    9. Ananda Jayawickrama & Tilak Abeysinghe, 2013. "The experience of some OECD economies on tax smoothing," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(16), pages 2305-2313, June.
    10. John Creedy & Grant Scobie, 2017. "Debt projections and fiscal sustainability with feedback effects," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(3), pages 237-261, September.
    11. 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.
    12. Ross Guest, 2013. "Intergenerational Smoothing of New Zealand’s Future Fiscal Costs," Treasury Working Paper Series 13/12, New Zealand Treasury.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public Finance; Tax Smoothing; Balanced Budget; Demographics; and Deadweight Loss;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • H60 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - General

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