AGENTA Final Conference: Economic Consequences of Population Ageing and Intergenerational Equity

The European population is ageing at a rapid pace: the old-age dependency ratio in 28 EU countries will increase from 31 per cent today to 50 per cent by year 2040. Among the institutions most affected by demographic change is the public transfer system, which largely redistributes from the employed population to the retired elderly generation. There are concerns that the increasing share of elderly persons relative to the employed would result in a large burden on the young generations and puts the elderly population at the risk of poverty. Substantial research seeks to understand and quantify the consequences of ageing for public transfers and provide suggestions how to adapt the transfer systems to demographic changes. The guiding principle of the AGENTA project is to explain and forecast public transfers in Europe and provide evidence-based policy proposals to ensure the long-term sustainability of public finances. In the final conference, we shall bring researchers, stakeholders and policy-makers together to discuss the challenges and to develop strategies toward adapting the intergenerational transfer systems to demographic changes.

The conference will be structured along the following topics:

· Labour force participation and retirement
· Intergenerational redistribution of resources'
· Public revenues and expenditures in a demographic context
· Simulation of public and private transfer systems
· Measures and indicators for intergenerational transfers: sustainability and fairness

We encourage theoretical contributions as well as empirical studies, in particular those based on National Transfer Accounts (NTA) and National Time Transfer Accounts (NTTA). Selected papers will be published in the 2019 issue of the Vienna Yearbook of Population Research.

The AGENTA Final Conference will be the annual conference of the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital 2017. To read more on the AGENTA¹ project, please visit (http://www.agenta-project.eu).

On the day after the conference, on Wednesday, 22 November 2017, an introduction into the NTA and NTTA data followed by a hands-on-workshop will be organised.