Who Will Pay? Coping with Aging Societies, Climate Change, and Other Long-Term Fiscal Challenges

Books, November 5, 2003

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Canonical URL: Who Will Pay? Coping with Aging Societies, Climate Change, and Other Long-Term Fiscal Challenges

Policymakers confront developments that threaten to burden public budgets for decades or bankrupt some governments: aging populations, weather shocks, scarce water, globalization, and security threats.
The book argues that governments need to make policy changes now to take account of the potential fiscal consequences of these developments.
After describing how, if at all, analysts, national governments, and international organizations currently address these long-term issues, the book stresses the vital need for a multipronged approach.
Key elements of the recommended multipronged approach:
- Strengthened analyses of long-term fiscal risks.
- Greater attention to long-term issues and risk factors in budgeting.
- Institutional reforms that address the myopic biases of politicians and the public.

Make policy changes now to account for potential fiscal consequences of long-term developments.
Strengthen analytical frameworks to better capture long-term and contingent fiscal risks.
Integrate long-term issues and risk factors explicitly into budgeting processes.
Implement institutional reforms aimed at mitigating short-term political and public myopia.

Subject: Aging, Budget planning and preparation, Expenditure, Fiscal policy, Population and demographics, Public debt, Public financial management (PFM)
Keywords: Aging, BOOK, Budget planning and preparation, Caribbean, country, fiscal policy framework, Global, government, government policy, policy, policy action, policy commitment, policy reform, policy uncertainty, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Western Europe