The European National Transfer Accounts: Data and Applications

Population ageing exerts considerable pressure on the funding of public transfers. It is utmost importance to understand how transfer system can adapt population ageing. Using National Transfer Accounts, we illustrate different organisation systems across Europe. Countries like Greece and Romania, where labour income already falls short consumption at age 54, would greatly improve their sustainability by following Swedish example this happens ten years later. High older ages less problematic when financed substantially through savings (the UK) rather than almost exclusively transfers (Austria).