Ageing populations pose a major challenge for long-term sustainability of public finances. The respond has been a wave of pension reforms that has lowered markedly the projected pension expenditure in EU countries. The increase in the second major expenditure item, health and long-term care...

This study analyses the adjustment of the Finnish earnings-related pension system to very low economic growth. The results show that a permanently lower growth rate of the wage bill would raise only moderately the pension contribution rates in the long term. This is because also the benefits are...

Can longer working lives bring sufficient tax revenues to pay for the growing public health and care expenditure that longer lifetimes cause? We review studies concerning retirement decisions and pension policies, the role of mortality in health and long-term care costs, and errors in mortality...

The share of singles has been increasing. Studies show that singles on average use more health and long-term care services than couples. How large a burden is the change in household structures likely to create for public finances in a welfare state? We decompose per capita health and long-term...

All quantitative evaluations of fiscal sustainability that include the effects of population ageing must utilize demographic forecasts. It is well known that such forecasts are uncertain, and some studies have taken that into account by using stochastic population projections jointly with...

Public health and long-term care services are predominantly used by old people and financed by taxes paid by working-age people. Fluctuating sizes of generations create variations in tax rates, similar to what occurs in pension contribution rates. Pre-funding is a commonly suggested cure for...