Intergenerational issues have become one of the most immediate and important social concerns over recent periods. Tensions between generations are felt especially keenly in Japan where low fertility and high life expectancy make it one of the first countries to deal with such issues. Japan’s successes and/or failures will provide examples for many other countries that follow. Nevertheless, the topic is still understudied and in most cases policy-makers are struggling to solve intergenerational issues on a makeshift basis. Senior citizens who hold large political powers are more likely to receive excess redistribution of income. Some concern possible adverse effects of this redistribution on resource allocation. Intergenerational issues must be further tackled both theoretically and empirically in a deep and intellectually rigorous way. Among others, establishing the relevant datasets is crucial for empirical work and policy design. However, a large-scale, comprehensive panel for studying education, labor force participation, household formation and child-raising of younger and middle-aged individuals is still missing and must be constructed.

This project makes both theoretical and empirical analyses of intergenerational issues from an economic point of view. It addresses pension, health care, employment, household formation, child-raising, fiscal deficits, global warming, and technological innovation problems in the context of population aging/decline. It clarifies current and future intergenerational situations of economic well-being, examines cohort-by-cohort motivations to reduce intergenerational conflicts, deepens conceptual understanding of intergenerational equity, and provides solid policy recommendations.