Age Related Pension Expenditure and Fiscal Space : Modelling techniques and case studies from East Asia

This book reviews the modeling techniques used to project pension related old-age expenditure, and examines the quality and policy relevance of the projections, particularly the four most populated Asian countries: China, India, Indonesia and Japan. It also assesses the additional fiscal resources likely to be required by these four countries as they address challenges of rapid ageing. This book fills an important gap in the existing pension literature.

This book explores the linkages between age-related pension expenditures and the fiscal space needed to fund them, as well as to organize the mix of financing methods with different risk-sharing arrangements. After critically assessing the existing models projecting age-related expenditure in the literature, the book focuses on the case studies of these inter-linkages in four highly-populated East Asian countries, namely China, Indonesia, India, and Japan. Nearly two- fifths of the global population live in these countries. Therefore, how these inter-linkages manifest themselves and the initiatives in these countries for finding fiscal space will have an impact on how the ageing issues are addressed globally.

This book does several distinguishing characteristics, including exploration of inter-linkages between age-related expenditure and fiscal space, and application of country-specific methods to explore these linkages, rather than relying standard macroeconomic model. In the process, the studies also bring out the limitations of standardized model used in the literatures. Scholars and policy makers interested in the subject will definitely find the book of valuable use.