Government healthcare expenditures have been growing much more rapidly than GDP in OECD countries. For example, between 1970 and 2002 these expenditures grew 2.3 times faster than GDP in the U.S., 2.0 times faster than GDP in Germany, and 1.4 times faster than GDP in Japan. How much of...

Government healthcare expenditures have been growing much more rapidly than GDP in OECD countries. How much of this growth is due to demographic change versus increases in benefit levels (expenditures per person at a given age)? This paper answers this question for ten OECD countries...

The main determinants of the financial problems of the German statutory health and longtermcare systems are demographic aging, the medical-technical progress as well as thedisproportionate cost increase in long-term care services. Concerning these factors, onlyreform concepts on the expenditure...

During the next decades the populations of most developed countries will grow older as a result of the low level of birth rates since the 1970s and/or the continuously increasing life expectancy. We show within a Generational Accounting framework how unsustainable the public finances of France,...

The consequences of ageing populations for federal and state fiscal policies are, due to the research efforts of the last two decades, well known. However, it is rather less well known how the municipal level is affected. Therefore, by using a modification of the sustainability definition...