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Measuring Intergenerational Justice
[journal article]
Abstract Concern with intergenerational justice has long been a focus of economics. This essay considers the effort, over the last three decades, to quantify generational fiscal burdens using label-free fiscal gap and generational accounting. It also points out that government debt - the conventional metric ... view more
Concern with intergenerational justice has long been a focus of economics. This essay considers the effort, over the last three decades, to quantify generational fiscal burdens using label-free fiscal gap and generational accounting. It also points out that government debt - the conventional metric for assessing generational fiscal justice - has no grounding in economic theory. Instead, official debt is the result of economically arbitrary government labelling decisions: whether to call receipts "taxes" rather than "borrowing" and whether to call payments "transfer payments" rather than "debt service". Via their choice of words, governments decide which obligations to put on, and which to keep off, the books. The essay also looks to the future of generational fiscal-justice analysis. Rapid computational advances are permitting economists to understand not just direct government intergenerational redistribution, but also how such policies impact the economy that future generations will inherit.... view less
Keywords
redistribution; justice; Intergenerational relations; taxes; inter-generational contract; tax policy; transfer payments; fiscal policy
Classification
Social Security
Public Finance
Free Keywords
Generational Accounting; Fiscal Gap; Deficit Delusion
Document language
English
Publication Year
2017
Page/Pages
p. 56-63
Journal
Intergenerational Justice Review, 3 (2017) 2
Issue topic
Measuring Intergenerational Justice for Public Policy (I)
DOI
https://doi.org/10.24357/igjr.11.2.630
ISSN
2190-6335
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed