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Private Asset-Based Reallocations

This workshop explores the conceptual foundations and principles of private asset-based reallocations, using NTA methods and illustrating the results. Topics include lifecycle saving models, credit and age reallocations, and the relationship between NTA and economic theories.

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Private Asset-Based Reallocations

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  1. Private Asset-Based Reallocations Andrew Mason NTA Workshop June 2010

  2. Objectives • Preliminaries • Conceptual foundations for private asset-based flows • NTA foundations: principles and methods • Illustrative results • Conclusions • Assignment

  3. Asset-based Reallocations Defined • Asset-based reallocations are defined as the net flows to each age that arise from the existence of assets. • Inflows consist of asset income and dis-saving. • Outflows consist of saving and negative asset income, e.g., interest expense. • Asset-based reallocations are one of two economic mechanisms for shifting resources across age.

  4. Inflows Labor Income Asset Income Transfer Inflows Outflows Consumption Saving Transfer Outflows The Flow Account Identity

  5. Conceptual foundations • Lifecycle saving model • Credit and age reallocations • NTA foundations • Willis 1988 • Lee 1994

  6. Lifecycle Saving Model • LC saving model most closely associated with Modigliani. • Simplest model • People are lifetime planners • Saving is governed by simple economic lifecycle consisting of two periods: work and retirement. • People save during their working years and use that saving to fund their retirement relying on asset income and dis-saving. • No bequests. People know when they are going to die or rely on costless annuities to avoid accidental bequests.

  7. Implications of LC Model • Aggregate saving rates higher in growing economy (Modigliani). • Implications of changes in age structure for saving and wealth (Tobin) • Public PAYGO pension systems crowd out private saving (Feldstein) • These issues have been explored using NTA concepts and estimates (Lee, Mason, and others).

  8. BackgroundLC model controversies • Saving is motivated by bequests rather than lifecycle needs (Kotlikoff) • Irrelevant to developing countries which rely on familial support systems • People do not engage in long-term planning (Attanasio, Carroll, Deaton and behavioral economists)

  9. Credit and the Economic Lifecycle • Credit can also be used to reallocate resources across age. • Individuals can borrow at one age and repay at another. • Credit and other financial flows always have a counterpart. • Domestic counterpart: persons of a different age. • Foreign counterpart.

  10. Credit and the Economic Lifecycle • International differences in population age structure can lead to international financial flows (Taylor and Williamson 1994). • Use of credit to fund retirement is limited because there is no generation that can serve as the natural domestic counterpart (Samuelson 1958). • Credit can be used to fund limited consumption during early adult years. Borrow from workers and repay them when they are retirees. This provides a limited role for credit as a mechanism for funding pensions.

  11. Relationship between NTA and Theory • NTA estimates do NOT assume any particular behavioral theory. • NTA is an accounting framework. • NTA estimates are useful, however, for considering many of the issues that arise in the context of the lifecycle saving model and other theories about age reallocations.

  12. Private Asset-based ReallocationsNTA principles and methods

  13. Important Concepts • Assets and asset flows • An economic asset is a store of value over which ownership rights are enforced, individually or collectively, and from which the owner may derive economic benefits by holding it or using it over a period of time (UNSNA 1993, p 56). • Asset flows consist of asset income and saving • Private asset-based flows • Asset flows to and from households, corporations, and NPISHs. • Financial flows with public and private counterparts • Interest on public debt is an outflow for government and an inflow for owners of government issued securities. • The sale of government securities produces an inflow to the government (dis-saving) and an outflow from the party acquiring the government security.

  14. Types of Private Assets

  15. Types of Private Asset Income

  16. Capital Income • Three components of capital income measured relying on SNA • Net operating surplus of corporations • Net operating surplus of households • Capital’s share of net mixed income • Important: all measures are net of depreciation. • Surplus of corporations and mixed income must be adjusted to incorporate taxes on production and net subsidies • Operating surplus is equal to the imputed rent of owner-occupied housing • Capital’s share of mixed income is not reported in SNA. We assume 1/3 of mixed income is return to capital.

  17. Age Profiles of Capital Income • NTA based on assumption that all assets are held by the household head. • Operating surplus of corporations: age profile of property income (dividends, interest and rent). • Operating surplus of households: age profile of imputed rent of owner-occupied housing. • Capital’s share of mixed income: age profile of income from business, farms, etc.

  18. Property Income • In UN SNA property income consists of: • interest • distributed income of corporations • reinvested earnings on direct foreign investment • property income to insurance holders, and • rent. • Some components not always available. • Property income is different than capital income because all property income has a counterpart, i.e., inflows and outflows are matched. • Counterpart may be ROW. For residents property income inflows will differ from outflows by net property income of ROW.

  19. Age Profiles of Property Income • Inflows • All inflows go to the household head • Age profile of property income • Outflows • Interest paid by households: interest expense by age of household head. • All other outflows use age profile of property income.

  20. Asset Income Age Profiles

  21. Private Saving • Private saving is the balancing items in NTA (and national income accounts) • Private saving at each age is calculated as:

  22. Private Saving • Private saving for children should be approximately zero because children are not household heads. • Private saving not exactly zero for children because of approximation errors introduced through smoothing. • Summed over all ages, private saving in NTA is equal to net national saving in SNA.

  23. Illustrative Results

  24. Overall pattern of asset-based flows (average of all countries)

  25. Overall pattern of asset-based flows (average of all countries) • People at all adult ages are relying on asset-based flows. • Elderly are funding deficit (lifecycle) • Prime age adults funding net transfers.

  26. Components of asset-based flows (average of all countries)

  27. Components of asset-based flows (average of all countries) Saving increases with age, but never exceeds asset income. Lifecycle surplus is not saved. It funds transfers. Saving is high for elderly; no dis-saving. Some dis-saving at young adult ages

  28. Role of assets in old-age support

  29. Assets and old-age support Korea Asset-based flows much less important for the older-old. Familial transfers are making up the difference. United States Asset-based flows much less important for the older-old. Public transfers are making up the difference. US KR

  30. Age 65-74 Cross-country comparison, persons 65-74. KR SI SI ♦Europe & US ▲Asia■Latin America

  31. Cross-country comparison, persons 75-84. Age 75-84 UY MX ♦Europe & US ▲Asia■Latin America

  32. Cross-country comparison, persons 85+. ♦Europe & US ▲Asia■Latin America

  33. Age profiles of asset income and saving

  34. Note that scale is very different than for high income countries. Values are much greater in middle-income countries.

  35. Concluding Observations • Saving profile in NTA • Similar to other commonly constructed age profiles which report saving rates by age of household head • NTA measure of saving is broader • Private saving is used by assigning corporate saving to households • Usually saving profiles are based on household saving

  36. Concluding observations • Use of household head’s age • Asset income and saving profiles do not fully capture within household details • Young adults may be accumulating wealth while living in households of their parents • Older adults may retain ownership of assets while living in a household headed by adult offspring • Implications of this approach can be analyzed to some extent using estimates of private intra-household transfers that are saved. But these results depend on model of intrahousehold transfers.

  37. Concluding Observations • Saving provides a partial picture about how assets evolve over time • Bequests • Other capital transfers • Dowry, bride price and similar arrangements in rich countries • Transition in household headship • Changes in asset prices • High asset income of young and middle-aged adults relative to saving suggests that these mechanisms are important.

  38. Concluding Observations • Reality of asset-based flows is much more complex that economic models and pre-conceptions • Elderly do rely on assets in retirement except where public transfer programs are very substantial or in transition economies (China) • Elderly do not appear to dis-save, however. In fact, there saving rates are very high. • Prime age adults are relying heavily on assets. Their labor income is insufficient to fund their own consumption plus net transfers to other generations. • Asset-based flows are very important in lower income countries.

  39. Assignment • Construct asset-based flows for your country using RA.v2.xls. • Required inputs • Aggregate controls • Age profiles of asset income • NTA estimates of LCD and net transfers • Illustrative example for Germany is available on the website.

  40. Mahalo

  41. Further Readings Essential NTA Manual Further Reading Samuelson, P.1958. "An Exact Consumption Loan Model of Interest with or without the Social Contrivance of Money", in Journal of Political Economy,Vol. 66. Tobin, J. 1967. Life Cycle Saving and Balanced Economic Growth. in W. Fellner (ed.) Ten Economic Studies in the Tradition of Irving Fisher. New York, Wiley. Willis, R. J. 1988. Life cycles, institutions and population growth: A theory of the equilibrium interest rate in an overlapping-generations model. in R. D. Lee, W. B. Arthur, G. Rodgers (eds.) Economics of Changing Age Distributions in Developed Countries. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Lee, R. D. 1994. The Formal Demography of Population Aging, Transfers, and the Economic Life Cycle. in L. G. Martin, S. H. Preston (eds.) Demography of Aging. Washington, D.C., National Academy Press. Feldstein, M.1974. "Social Security, Induced Retirement, and Aggregate Capital Accumulation", in Journal of Political Economy,Vol. 82, No. 5. Attanasio, O. P., Weber, G.2010. "Consumption and saving: Models of intertermporal allocation and their implications for public policy", in NBER Working Paper,Vol. 15756.

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