Yamada Tomoaki    Department   Undergraduate School  , School of Commerce    Position   Professor
Language	English
Publication Date	2019/03
Type	Academic Journal
Peer Review	Peer reviewed
Title	Population Aging, Health Care and Fiscal Policy Reform: The Challenges for Japan
Contribution Type	Co-authored (other than first author)
Journal	Scandinavian Journal of Economics
Journal Type	Another Country
Publisher	Wiley
Volume, Issue, Page	121(2),pp.547-577
Author and coauthor	Minchung Hsu
Details	This paper quantitatively studies the influence of a rapidly aging population on the financing of a public universal health insurance system and the corresponding fiscal policies. We construct a general equilibrium life-cycle model to investigate the effects of aging and evaluate various policy alternatives designed to lessen the negative influence of aging. In particular, we analyze the reforms of insurance benefits and tax financing tools that were the recent focus of a great amount of attention and debate in Japan because of the tense financial situation. We show that although the potential reforms significantly improve the welfare of future generations, political implementation of such reforms is difficult because of the large welfare costs for the current population. Our analysis suggests that a gradual reform with an intergenerational redistribution will be more implementable politically than a sudden reform.
DOI	10.1111/sjoe.12280