CIGS Seminar："The implications of a Greying Japan for government policy"

Abstruct
　Japan is experiencing sudden and large demographic changes. In 1990 the share of the population aged 65 and older was 12 percent, the lowest in the Group of 6 large industrialized countries. By 2004 the share of Japan's population over age 65 at 20 percent was the highest in the Group of 6 and it is projected to rise to 36 percent by 2050. Associated with the greying of Japanese society will be higher social security outlays and higher government expenditures for medical care. How will Japan finance these obligations? The current gross public debt-GDP ratio in Japan exceeds 200 percent and the net debt-GDP ratio is expected to reach 120 percent in 2010. This paper considers alternative strategies for managing these future outlays in a computable overlapping generations model.