A popular view is that ageing populations increase health expenditure to GDP ratios because health expenditure correlates positively with age and because the concomitant shrinking of the labour force depresses GDP. The resulting increase in transfers from the young to the old then calls for a...

Our study shows that population aging substantially affects healthcare expenditure (HCE). This conclusion supports the popular, but recently strongly contested, view that the coming population aging will threaten the fiscal sustainability of health systems. We contribute to this debate, first by...