Intertemporal Balance Research Articles

Indicators for Measuring Intergenerational Fairness of Social Security Systems—The Case of the German Social Health Insurance

The issue of fiscal sustainability is often labelled as a synonym for intergenerational fairness; however, pay-as-you-go schemes such as the German Social Health Insurance (SHI) involve a “natural” amount of intergenerational redistribution from younger net payers to older net beneficiaries. We calculate intertemporal balance sheets of SHI and compare two generational accounting approaches (GAC and GAIB) with an alternative measure of intergenerational fairness, SM, which we derive from Settergren and Mikula (2005). Our results indicate that the SM concept leads to similar implications concerning the amount of intergenerational redistribution as classical measures of fiscal sustainability. For the SM approach, the balance sheet of SHI shows a rate of unfunded benefits of 25 percent. Closing this gap requires an increase of the contribution rate by 30 to 40 percent. This total effect can be separated into an effect due to the current population structure (10 p.p.), the increase in life expectancy (10 p.p.), and medical technical progress (about 10 to 20 p.p.).

Finland’s public sector balance sheet

ABSTRACTWe construct comprehensive public sector balance sheets for Finland for 2000–2016 by complementing general government statistics with data on public corporations and pensions. These static balance sheets show that Finland’s public sector net worth at end 2016 was −160 percent of GDP, after having registered considerable fluctuations previously, including due to asset holdings’ sensitivity to equity valuations. We then expand the analysis to an intertemporal balance sheet by adding present value estimates of future fiscal flows. This allows performing fiscal stress tests and policy experiments. These suggest that Finland’s public finances will remain sound if ongoing reform efforts to address aging pressures yield their expected savings. Under this assumption, intertemporal financial net worth (IFNW) of the public sector would exceed 50 percent of GDP – well within the 30–85 percent of GDP range derived in stress tests as the needed buffer to maintain positive IFNW in light of a severe shock.

Achieving Temporal Ambidexterity in New Ventures

AbstractOrganizations face a common intertemporal choice problem, where actions suitable in the shortterm are different from those that work in the longterm. Building on the organizational ambidexterity theory, we argue that organizations can reconcile their short‐term and long‐term tensions, but this does necessitate managerial endeavours that orchestrate this reconciliation. We introduce the concept of temporal ambidexterity and define four intertemporal tensions involving an organization’s objectives, resources, markets, and uncertainty. We examine how firms can address these tensions successfully in the context of new ventures, and to do so we focus on three managerial capabilities of founder‐CEOs: expertise breadth, external connectivity, and empowering leadership. Results from 243 new ventures in China suggest that temporal ambidexterity improves with these managerial capabilities, and more so for younger ventures. Our findings shed light on solutions and mechanisms by which intertemporal balance is fulfilled, particularly for new ventures in a dynamic environment.

Are reserve holdings in emerging Asian countries excessive? - The intertemporal balance perspective

Under the assumption of intertemporal balance, current foreign reserve holdings should equal the present value of the sum of future current account and financial account balances. To satisfy the intertemporal balance, a testable condition indicates that the change in foreign reserves needs to follow a stationary path. We employ variant unit root tests on nine Asian emerging markets for the time period of 1989.1 to 2008.12. The univariate unit root test shows that most countries have violated the intertemporal balance due to accumulating excessive reserves, while for the time period up to 1997.6, prior to the Asian currency crises, most countries deviated from the sustainable path due to deficient reserve holdings. However, results from the panel unit root test, which particularly considers the cross country correlation, show that except for China not being on a sustainable path, the other countries do not violate the intertemporal balance. The disparate results between univariate and panel unit root tests indicate interdependence among Asian emerging markets in the era of financial globalisation and vindicate the advantages from regional financial cooperation.

Intertemporal choice of marine ecosystem exploitation

Exploitation of the marine ecosystem brings with it an intertemporal choice: there is a choice of catching the fish today, or restrain from fishing with the option of an increase in the benefit from future harvest. In a marine ecosystem under common pool management regime the contribution margin from catching the fish belongs to the fisher, while the benefit from the investment of leaving the fish in the sea will be shared in the common pool. The intertemporal choice therefore creates a driver for short sighted use of the ecosystem. The intertemporal balance of the exploitation is analyzed by applying capital theory to a size-based ecosystem model. The model reveals a need for intertemporal balance with respect to both fish size and harvest volume. The management therefore is, at an ecosystem level, to set target and regulate not only harvest volume but also size.

The sustainability of fiscal policy: evidence from a panel of six South-Mediterranean countries

This article aims at assessing the sustainability of fiscal policies in a panel of six South-Mediterranean countries, namely Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey. First, using panel data unit-root tests proposed by Im et al. (2003), Maddala and Wu (1999), and Choi (2001), econometric findings reveal that the variables of public expenditure, revenue and domestic debt in level are not stationary. However, employing panel cointegration tests designed by Pedroni (1999), it is found that government spending and revenue are cointegrated. This implies that fiscal policies in these countries are sustainable in the long run, i.e. they are consistent with inter-temporal budget balance in accordance with the present-value approach.

Federalismo e endividamento subnacional: uma discussão sobre a sustentabilidade da dívida estadual

The subnational debt in Brazil was marked by successive bailouts by the federal government. The path of subnational debt induced some locals and state authorities to claim for further renegotiations. More specifically, some governors and mayors demanded a revision of the refinancing contracts. This article intends to present arguments sustained by simulations of the evolution of the path of the subnational debt, denying the necessity of changes in legal framework, which rules the state debt. The first section consists of a brief overview. The following section treats the institutional framework designed to safeguard the fiscal intertemporal balance. In the third section, the implications of new institutional framework on the subnational debt are approached; in the fourth, the possible causes that distorted the expected path of the debt are discussed. The fifth section analyses the future perspectives for the debt in general terms and focuses some specific cases, while the sixth section discusses the problem under a federal optics. Finally, the conclusion is presented.

Budget regimes and internal governance: considerations for the sustainability of fiscal policy

In a fiscal policy set-up with Ricardian equivalence and rational expectations, the decision-making of private agents is based on the knowledge that current deficits will be met with future tax increases or spending decreases. This view requires that the government's budget exhibit intertemporal balance, or that fiscal policy be sustainable. This paper examines the extent to which sustainability holds in the light of changes in the institutional structure of the budget process and changes in internal House governance rules. The results indicate that certain aspects of sustainability are related to the underlying institutional structure and governance of the budget process.

Foreign Aid and Economic Growth: The Role of Flexible Labor Supply

This paper examines the link between foreign aid, economic growth, and welfare in a small open economy. External transfers impinge on the recipient's macroeconomic performance by affecting resource allocation decisions and relative prices. The endogeneity of the labor-leisure choice and the adjustment of the real wage rate play a crucial role in the propagation of foreign aid shocks. Another crucial determinant of the efficacy of foreign aid is externalities associated with the public good that the aid helps finance. The impact of tied and untied aid on the recipient government's intertemporal fiscal balance is also considered. Finally, the transitional adjustment to a foreign aid shock is shown to depend crucially on the elasticity of substitution in production and the relative importance of the labor-leisure choice in utility.

Capital mobility, intertemporal current account balance and currency crisis

From the perspective of the intertemporal balance model, we investigate how capital mobility affects the current account for six developing countries from the mid–1970s to the end of 1999. We find that after 1989, when capital liberalisation became prevalent, the causal relationship from the financial account to the current account is quite significant, while prior to 1989 the direction of causality is reversed for most of these countries. An exception is Taiwan, in which the current account retains dominance over the financial account. An impulse response analysis illustrates that due to the laggard response of the current account to a financial account shock, capital flows can drive the current account out of a sustainable path. Without a sound financial system and well–managed macroeconomic policies to channel inflowing capital, countries recklessly liberalising capital restrictions are susceptible to a currency crisis.

Identification of parametric policy options for rehabilitating a pay-as-you-go based pension system: an optimization analysis for Turkey

Publicly managed pension systems operating on the basis of pay-as-you-go (PAYG) schemes face financial difficulties worldwide. The expenditure-revenue balances of such a system are determined jointly by the selected configuration of system parameters, and interrelated developments in the labour market and demographic structure. In a country where pension coverage is compulsory, these developments occur completely beyond the control of pension system administrators implying that any imbalances that may arise over time can be corrected only by adjusting the existing configuration of contribution and replacement rates, and minimum retirement ages. It can be shown, however, that there are infinitely many configurations of these system parameters that could be used to maintain a selected intertemporal balance between the amounts of contributions collected from workers and pensions paid to the retirees. This paper describes an algorithm developed to identify all possible configurations compatible with this goal and illustrates its use with reference to the pension reform debate in Turkey, a country whose PAYG-based pension system already faces a severe financial crisis despite a relatively young workforce/population. The results indicate that for contribution and replacement rates to remain around their current values, the minimum retirement age must be increased substantially.

Intertemporal current account balance and the East Asian currency crises

Under the assumption that the balance of the current account must satisfy the expected intertemporal balance, this paper seeks to establish a precondition for the recent currency crises in East Asian countries. Whenever current policy violates the expected intertemporal balance, it is argued that future policy changes (possibly including the exchange rate regime) are anticipated. Using Trehan and Walsh's [1991] result that nonstationarity of the change of assets is evidence of a violation of the expected intertemporal balance, this paper calculates the augmented Dickey-Fuller statistics of the current account prior to the East Asian currency crises. In each of these crises, there is evidence of a persistent violation of intertemporal balance prior to the crisis. There is also evidence of countries being affected by the plight of their neighbors. Their currencies depreciated even though it was not necessary.

Demand for cash balances in Germany: theoretical underpinnings and empirical evidence

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a cash-in-advance model of an open economy. Following the contribution of Bohn (1991) and using intertemporal balance of payments theory we set up a currency demand function with real consumption expenditure, the foreign interest rate and exchange rate expectations as the core explaining variables. We test the model with the aid of the econometric techniques proposed by Hylleberg, Engle, Granger and Yoo (1990) and Engle, Granger, Hylleberg and Lee (1993) relying on quarterly seasonally unadjusted data for Germany in the period 1960: 1 to 1993: 4. The findings reported in the paper support the suggestions made by the theoretical model.

Intertemporal Balance, Sustainability and Efficiency of the Exchange Rate Mechanism

Under the assumption that the balance of payments must satisfy the expected intertemporal balance, this paper seeks to establish a pre-condition for a crisis of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Proposing that non-stationarity of the growth rate of assets is evidence of a violation of expected intertemporal balance, we calculate Augmented Dickey-Fuller statistics of the growth rate of foreign exchange reserves prior to the ERM crisis in September, 1992 for member states. In all, but one, of the crisis experiences, there is no evidence of a violation of intertemporal balance prior to the month of the crisis. However, the persistent violation of intertemporal balance by Italy prior to the crisis reflects that the fundamental disequilibrium matters to the viability of the ERM. With no evidence of ef ficient allocation of the foreign reserves within the member states, the ERM is exposed to attack by speculators. (JEL Classification: F31, F33)