Intergenerational Justice in Public Finance: A Canadian case study

This study examines whether Canadian governments have adapted budgets for the ageing population in accordance with norms of intergenerational justice. Public finance data in 2016 are analysed compared to 1976 in light of three constructs: the elderly/non-elderly ratio of social spending change, intergenerational reciprocity, and ability to pay. Findings include that (i) governments increased per capita spending for seniors 4.2 times faster than for those under the age of 45; (ii) public finance requires younger Canadians to contribute 22%-62% more in income taxes for the elderly now by comparison with 1976; and (iii) the contemporary ageing population has a greater ability to pay than cohorts immediately before and after them.

the nordic countries are already very ‘aged’ societies, and are set to witness further population ageing in the future. In global comparison, Sweden, Finland and denmark have the 4th, 6th and 11th highest proportions of people aged 60 and over in their populations (united nations 2010: 7). Sweden is currently one of only five countries in the world where people aged 80 and over account for more than 5 per cent of the total population (ibid.: 25). by 2050, the proportion of the population aged 65 and over is predicted to exceed one quarter in Finland, norway and denmark, and to pass the 30 per cent mark in Sweden (united nations 2002). the nordic countries are widely seen as forming a ‘family’ or a ‘regime’ of welfare states that is characterized by extensive redistribution, high legitimacy for public welfare provision, universal (citizenshipbased) and earningsrelated social rights, and comparatively low levels of inequality (kautto 2010). they are also argued to share normative foundations in the form of widespread support for policies that foster equality of opportunities, a high degree of equality of outcomes, and gender equality (kildal and kuhnle 2005). In the area of benefits and services for older people, this translates into pension systems that cover the entire older population at a relatively generous benefit level (kautto 2012), and longterm care systems that grant older adults with disabilities the right to public assistance. Szebehely (2011: 215) states that the hallmark of the nordic ‘service state’ is extensive provision of highquality services that are taken up by all sections of the population, rich and poor alike. What happens when population ageing and extensive welfare state provisions coincide? are these comparatively ‘generous’ welfare states sustainable when confronted with such aged populations and further population ageing? the key word in the question posed above is ‘sustainability’, a concept that can be understood in many ways and that has no single agreed definition in the literature. Sustainable development is generally understood to encompass economic, social and environmental sustainability (see, e.g., Sen 2009). ‘economic sustainability’ usually refers to the sound management of public finances. In the eu, longterm sustainability is assessed by calculating the ‘sustainability gap’. this can be defined as the adjustment required in public finances for covering the debt in the initial year and the aggregate present value of future surpluses and deficits in public finances over the period analysed. the eu also uses another sustainability indicator that reveals the fiscal adjustment needed to meet the Stability and growth Pact’s maximum debt target of 60 per cent of gdP. Spelling out the concept of ‘social sustainability’, kautto (2011) sees basic rights, fairness, intergenerational justice and legitimacy as its component parts. often policy reforms are justified by economic necessities, but if they are carried out in a socially

IGJR issue 1/2018

Tax and Spending in the 2020s

The Economics of Earmarked Taxes

Vegetation loss and recovery analysis from the 2015 Gorkha earthquake (7.8 Mw) triggered landslides

The National Transfer Accounts (NTA) is an analytical tool developed for analyzing a wide range of socioeconomic and demographic changes caused by age structure change. The NTA has an advantage over other previous data sets by measuring economic flows by age (and by gender) for both private and public sectors. As the measure is also consistent with the UN System of National Accounts, the output is useful addressing issues on economic growth, old-age support system, generational equity, gender equality, public finances, and many other important public policy issues. The chapter highlights the application of the NTA in assessing the sustainability of social programs and fiscal policies, emphasizing the need for accurate data and robust methodologies. It also discusses the implications of aging populations on public policy and the importance of long-term planning. The chapter offers three selective policy recommendations for rapidly aging countries such as the Republic of Korea: the need for selective welfare support, leveraging the capital-intensive economy, and addressing the fiscal challenges posed by a rapidly aging population.

Demographic change is one of the major social changes in recent years. And the core trend of these demographic changes is the declining birthrate and aging population. As for the current demographic structure, the number of young people is decreasing due to the falling fertility rate and the proportion of the elderly is increasing, and this trend is expected to continue for the time being. This reality we are now facing causes the need for a systematic response through paradigm shift rather than recognizing the low birth rate and aging population as a unique population phenomenon.
 The low fertility and aging population is a social phenomenon that appears as a relatively large number of people choose not to conceive and have children. And since these backgrounds and causes have limitations that are difficult to overcome by individual strength, not only the basic view of 'the right of pregnancy and childbirth', but also the problem of social integration through national identity, issues of sustainability and intergenerational justice, etc. It is necessary to discuss public law from the point of view of national tasks.
 In conclusion, in response to the low birth rate and aging population, national policies should not only maintain national sustainability, but also create a fertility and parenting-friendly environment so that individuals can respect their choices and happiness. In addition, in order to improve the social and economic structure, which is the cause of the low birth rate and aging population, it is of utmost importance to set the legislative direction considering the stabilization of the working environment and the sharing of the burden of childrearing through work-family balance. Now is the time to sympathize with the seriousness of the low fertility and aging problem and to focus on solving the direct cause of the problem.

Abstract: The privatisation of Australia's public services has been one of the major challenges facing public administration since the early 1980s. Its enthusiastic proponents and their equally fervent opponents have generated considerable controversy. Yet its impact may have been exaggerated. A number of writers have deplored its spread in Australia's human services. Yet their evidence for privatisation does not stand scrutiny. As well, if privatisation had occurred, it would have had an impact upon the flow of public finance and that should be reflected in public finance data. An examination of that data provides almost no support for the claim that the 1980s saw significant privatisation of Australia's human services.The current debate on privatisation … indicates a movement to return social welfare provision to sectors or systems other than government (ACOSS 1989 p.6).The re‐emergence of the voluntary sector has been facilitated by public policies designed to transfer responsibility for welfare services from the government to the non‐government sector (Baldock 1990, p. 109).with the more systematic transfer of services to the non‐governmental sector (Baldock 1990, p. 113).over the past two decades … a number of functions such as service delivery and management have been transferred from the state in a way that in most terms amounts to privatisation (NCOSS 1989, p.2).This rebirth of the non‐government sector can arguably be seen as a privatisation of the welfare state (NCOSS 1989, p.22).Human services in New South Wales have been and continue to be the subject of a wide range of reviews intended to produce changes which fit under the general rubric of “privatisation” (Evatt Research Centre 1989, p.208).The moves towards privatisation, if they are to continue, will have serious long term consequences (Graycar & Jamrozik 1989, p.296).

State finance systems for public elementary and secondary education are a complex institution of court decisions and state statutes, working together as rules of law, agency rules and regulations, and administrative codes. The ithink® Analyst system dynamics software program and the social fabric matrix (SFM) were used for a public school finance lawsuit in the state of Nebraska. A model of Nebraska’s education finance system, known as the Tax Equity and Educational Opportunities Support Act (TEEOSA), is constructed by integrating into the SFM the system components of belief statements, laws, rules, regulations, public finance data, and annual financial reports of public school districts, student enrollment data, and public organizations in an Excel spreadsheet. Digraphs are created using ithink® Analyst system dynamics program to show the flows and deliveries between and within the parts of the Nebraska education finance system. This analysis is useful in policy evaluation and development, law and rule making, and court ruling.

Background: Analysing the Canadian government’s efforts to support the development of COVID-19 "medical countermeasures" (MCMs), this article seeks insights into political economy as a driver of pandemic response. We explore whether Canadian public funding policy during the pandemic involved departures from established practices of financialisation in biopharmaceutical research and development (R&D), including the dominance of private sector involvement in an intellectual property (IP) intensive approach to innovation underscoring profit, and governance opacity.Methods: We interrogate public funding for MCMs by analyzing how much the Government of Canada (GoC) spent, how those funds were allocated, on what terms, and to whom. We identify the funding institutions, and the funds awarded between February 10, 2020, and March 31, 2021, to support the research, development, and manufacturing of MCMs, including diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics, and information about clinical management and virus transmission. To collect these data, we conducted searches on the Internet, public data repositories, and filed several requests under the Access to Information Act (1985). Subsequently, we carried out a document-based analysis of electronically accessible research contracts, proposals, grant calls, and policy announcements.Results: The GoC announced CAD$ 1.4 billion for research, development and manufacturing of COVID-19 MCMs. Fully 68% (CAD$ 959 million) of the announced public funding was channelled to investment in private sector firms. Canadian public funding showed a consistent focus on early and late stage development of COVID-19 MCMs and the expansion of biopharmaceutical manufacturing capacity. Assessing whether Canada’s investments into developing COVID-19 MCMs safeguard affordable and transparent access to the products of publicly funded research, we found that access policies on IP management, sharing of clinical data, affordability and availability were not systematic, consistent, or transparent, and few, if any, mechanisms ensured long-term sustainability.Conclusion: Beyond incremental change in policy goals, such as public investment in domestic biomanufacturing, the features of Canadian public policies endorsing financialization in the biopharmaceutical sector remained largely unchanged during the pandemic.

Economic Growth and Fiscal Sustainability in the EU: The Impact of an Ageing Population

In their joint fight against tax avoidance and tax evasion, international governance organizations have developed different tools. One of these tools is the joint tax audit, in which two or more countries join together to form a single audit team to examine an issue(s)/transaction(s) of one or more related taxable persons with cross-border business activities. International governance organizations, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Union and the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF), promote the use of joint tax audits, amongst others, as a tool in fighting tax fraud, tax evasion and aggressive tax planning. The literature on this phenomenon mainly focuses on the advantages and obstacles of using the instrument, and the need to amend legislation. Moreover, in the literature, guidance for companies invited to participate in a joint tax audit can be found, as well as references to the few joint tax audits conducted and the results of a pilot project conducted by the Netherlands and Germany. The authors’ aim is to answer the question, “Which countries may benefit most from joint tax audits if the arguments raised in the tax literature are valid?”. The authors have identified eight arguments for joint tax audits (arguments (a) – (h), see sections 4.1. and 5.) in the tax literature and have used sixteen different yardsticks (factors 1 – 16, see section 6.) to analyse which countries might benefit most. To make the research project manageable, the research focuses primarily on the situation faced by the European Union’s 28 Member States (hereinafter the “EU-28”) As Croatia joined the European Union as the 28th Member State in 2013, the public finance data provided in this article refer to the EU-27. Eleven of the 16 factors refer to EU-28 public finance data. The exception is the number of taxpayers’ factor because of available data for Croatia before 2013. The remaining 5 provide data before 2013, thus concern to EU-27 (see Table 8). and the 13 associated states. By combining arguments raised in the legal literature about joint audits with what public finance data tell us about, for example, tax compliance costs, the number of active taxpayers per administration employee, the number of mutual agreement procedures, tax compliance and tax moral levels, the authors analyse which of the EU-28 and its associated states might benefit most from joint audits and for what reasons. The analysis strongly supports the international governance initiatives for a multilateral legislative framework on joint audits. As multinational legislation in this field should be drafted with great care, the authors call for more pilot projects with, as their aim, the sharing of know-how and building capacity. The authors also provide some recommendations for the development of the multinational legislative framework and urge tax authorities/the OECD/the European Union to publish statistics on the joint audits performed.

In the Affordable Care Act era, no-cost-to-patient publicly funded sexually transmitted infection (STI) clinics have been challenged as the standard STI care delivery model. This study examined the impact of removing public funding and instituting a flat fee within an STI clinic under state-mandated insurance coverage. Cross-sectional database analysis examined changes in visit volumes, demographics, and payer mix for 4 locations in Massachusetts' largest safety net hospital (STI clinic, primary care [PC], emergency department [ED], obstetrics/gynecology [OB/GYN] for 3 periods: early health reform implementation, reform fully implemented but public STI clinic funding retained, termination of public funding and institution of a US$75 fee in STI clinic for those not using insurance). Sexually transmitted infection visits decreased 20% in STI clinic (P < 0.001), increased 107% in PC (P < 0.001), slightly decreased in ED, and did not change in OB/GYN. The only large demographic shift observed was in the sex of PC patients--women comprised 51% of PC patients seen for STI care in the first time period, but rose sharply to 70% in the third time period (P < 0.0001). After termination of public funding, 50% of STI clinic patients paid flat fee, 35% used public insurance, and 15% used private insurance. Mandatory insurance, public funding loss, and institution of a flat STI clinic fee were associated with overall decreases in STI visit volume, with significant STI clinic visit decreases and PC STI visit increases. This may indicate partial shifting of STI services into PC. Half of STI clinic patients chose to pay the flat fee even after reform was fully implemented.

The objective of this paper is to assess the impact of proposed Canadian climate change mitigation policies (discounting and carbon pricing) on cost, energy use, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the single-objective design/expansion optimization of the Amherstview water distribution system in Amherstview, Ontario, Canada. The single-objective optimization problem is solved with the elitist genetic algorithm (EGA). The optimization approach is used in a parametric analysis to examine the impact of discounting and carbon pricing on GHG reductions for cement-mortar ductile iron and polyvinyl chloride pipe materials. Preliminary results indicate that the discount rate and carbon prices investigated had no significant influence on energy use and GHG mass in the Amherstview system and did not meet the emission-reduction targets set by the Canadian government. This result was attributed to a number of factors, including adequately installed hydraulic capacity in the Amherstview system, the use of a time-declining GHG emission intensity factor, and the scope of the expansion problem.