Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Population Forecasting for Fiscal Planning: Issues and Innovations
- 2-1 Comment
- 2-2 Comment
- 3 Uncertainty and the Design of Long-Run Fiscal Policy
- 3-1 Comment
- 3-2 Comment
- 4 How Does a Community's Demographic Composition Alter Its Fiscal Burdens?
- 4-1 Comment
- 4-2 Comment
- 5 Social Security, Retirement Incentives, and Retirement Behavior: An International Perspective
- 5-1 Comment
- 5-2 Comment
- 6 Aging, Fiscal Policy, and Social Insurance: A European Perspective
- 6-1 Comment
- 6-2 Comment
- 7 Demographics and Medical Care Spending: Standard and Nonstandard Effects
- 7-1 Comment
- 8 Projecting Social Security's Finances and Its Treatment of Postwar Americans
- 8-1 Comment
- 9 Demographic Change and Public Assistance Expenditures
- 9-1 Comment
- 9-2 Comment
- Index
9-2 - Comment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Population Forecasting for Fiscal Planning: Issues and Innovations
- 2-1 Comment
- 2-2 Comment
- 3 Uncertainty and the Design of Long-Run Fiscal Policy
- 3-1 Comment
- 3-2 Comment
- 4 How Does a Community's Demographic Composition Alter Its Fiscal Burdens?
- 4-1 Comment
- 4-2 Comment
- 5 Social Security, Retirement Incentives, and Retirement Behavior: An International Perspective
- 5-1 Comment
- 5-2 Comment
- 6 Aging, Fiscal Policy, and Social Insurance: A European Perspective
- 6-1 Comment
- 6-2 Comment
- 7 Demographics and Medical Care Spending: Standard and Nonstandard Effects
- 7-1 Comment
- 8 Projecting Social Security's Finances and Its Treatment of Postwar Americans
- 8-1 Comment
- 9 Demographic Change and Public Assistance Expenditures
- 9-1 Comment
- 9-2 Comment
- Index
Summary
My comments on Moffitt's useful chapter include a narrow technical issue, elaborations on the explanation for increases in female-headed households, and discussion of the interrelatedness of demographic problems.
A Narrow Technical Issue
Many outcomes, such as the aggregate incidence of AFDC recipiency, can be viewed as the product of two components. Typically, one component is the number or population share of the subpopulation at risk (called “composition”), and the other is the rate at which those at risk experience some event, such as receipt of AFDC. Decomposition analysis attempts to allocate responsibility for overall change between changes in composition and changes in rates. While there is much that is intuitive about decomposition, there are also inherent complexities. Given two components (here, composition and rates) and two time points (before and after the change), there will be an effect of changes in the first (with the second held constant) and a comparable effect for changes in the second. The influence of both changes simultaneously adds a residual, interaction effect. More components and more years make these interaction effects numerous, and their magnitude will vary by the year chosen as the baseline and the order in which components are introduced. Moffitt (in Table 9.4) chooses the earliest and latest time period (only two time periods) and to include six “weighting types” that allow for all possible orderings of the three components.
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- Demographic Change and Fiscal Policy , pp. 435 - 440Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001