Child Benefits and Welfare for Current and Future Generations: Simulation Analyses in an Overlapping-Generations Model With Endogenous Fertility

We constructed an overlapping-generations model with endogenous fertility to analyze the effects of child benefits and pensions on the welfare of current and future generations. The following results were obtained. First, in the case without pension and accelerated fiscal reforms, the best policy to improve the welfare of future generations is to finance the provision of child benefits by capital taxation, followed by issuing government debt, consumption taxation (VAT), and wage taxation, in that order. Second, debt reduction coupled with increasing child benefits is preferable to debt reduction alone to reduce public debt for future generations. In particular, coupling increased child benefits and fiscal reform simultaneously stands out as the most desirable option. Third, from the viewpoint of pension reform, maintaining pension benefits by increasing VAT is better than cutting benefits coupled with increasing child benefits for future generations.