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This paper considers the relevance of a set of generational accounts in informing policy debate in the UK. With regard to transparency, Generational Accounts can, under sensible assumptions, provide a useful summary statistic to supplement our analysis of government policy. Interpreting differences in the accounts across groups as measures of the incidence or redistributiveness of existing or proposed policies is more problematic. With respect to UK pension reform, within-cohort differences raise important issues. Finally we argue that past pension reforms have been characterised by inaccurate forecasts as opposed to a lack of understanding of the generational incidence of proposed policy.
Authors
CPP Co-Director
James is Senior Research Fellow and Professor of Economics at Manchester, working on broad issues in the economics of retirement, savings and health.
Research Associate University of Sussex
Richard is an IFS Research Associate, a Part-time Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and a Visiting Professor of Economics at UCL.
Head of Data Services
Zoe is Head of Data Services. She joined the IFS in 1998 as a researcher and moved into Data Services in 2011.
Working Paper details
- DOI
- 10.1920/wp.ifs.1999.9916
- Publisher
- IFS
Suggested citation
J, Banks and R, Disney and Z, Oldfield. (1999). What can we learn about pension reform from Generational Accounts for the UK?. London: IFS. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/what-can-we-learn-about-pension-reform-generational-accounts-uk (accessed: 19 May 2024).
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