NBER Working Papers by Andrew Mason

In all societies intergenerational transfers are large and have an important influence on inequality and growth. The development of each generation of youth depends on the resources that it receives from productive members of society for health, education, and sustenance. The well-being of the elderly depends on familial support and a variety of social programs. The National Transfer Accounts (NTA) system provides a comprehensive approach to measuring all reallocations of income across age and time at the aggregate level. It encompasses reallocations achieved through capital accumulation and transfers, distinguishing those mediated by public institutions from those relying on private institutions. This paper introduces the methodology and presents preliminary results emphasizing economic s...

Understanding the economic lifecycle %u2013 how it varies and why %u2013 is important in its own right, but is also critical to understanding how changes in population age structure influence many features of the macroeconomy. Economic behavior over the life cycle can be summarized by the average levels of consumption and labor earnings at each age, as shaped by biology, culture, institutions and individual choice. Here we present estimates of these in detail for the US and Taiwan, showing the roles played by public and familial transfer systems as well as asset accumulation, and present more basic profiles for selected additional countries drawing on studies from a larger project. Average economic dependency occurs when consumption exceeds labor earnings, typically in childhood and old a...