Transfers, Consumption and Income over the Lifecycle: Application of NTA in Germany

Fanny Kluge, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

This research project seeks to quantify all public and private interage monetary flows in Germany applying the National Transfer Account method. The individual economic life cycle is characterized by long periods of dependency during childhood and after retirement. The dependent stages amount to about half a lifetime and have to be financed by shifting resources between generations. We will identify the magnitude of intergenerational transfers, the predominant transfer channels, and the varying income sources over the life cycle in the German case. Germany is a picture book welfare state, over the last century the government took over more and more functions the family would once have absorbed. The aim is to give a more complete picture of intergenerational relations by including private transfers and the benefits from public goods in the analysis. Special emphasis will be placed on differences in East/West transfer patterns, and the historic perspective studying their evolvement.