Ageing, optimal national saving and future living standards in Australia

Abstract

Making allowance for the ageing structure of the population, this paper calculates the levels of optimal national saving and future living standards for Australia for the period 1999-2050. For this period, the optimal saving response to the ageing of the Australian population is for national saving to increase from its current level by 2.7 per cent of GDP by the year 2017 and then to decline to the year 2050. The implied growth of living standards is 1.20 per cent per year. Reduced immigration would reduce the rate of growth of living standards but reduced fertility would not.