National Transfer Accounts

National Transfer Accounts: Understanding the Generational Economy

The goal of the National Transfer Accounts (NTA) network is to improve understanding of how population growth and changing population age structure influence economic growth, gender and generational equity, public finances, and other important features of the macro-economy. Research teams in more than 70 countries are constructing accounts that measure how people at each age produce, consume, and share resources, and save for the future. These accounts are designed to complement the UN System of National Accounts, population data, and other important economic and demographic indicators.

The 13th Global Meeting of the NTA Network was organized by the East-West Center on August 3-7, 2020, coordinated by Sang-Hyop Lee and Andy Mason. The agenda and session videos can be found here: NTA13.

NTA Data

NTA data are publicly available to on the NTA website (www.ntaccounts.org). In addition to the detailed accounts, summary measures and indicators are also available on the website.

The support ratio and its growth are two of the most widely used NTA-based indicators. These measures have recently been estimated for 185 countries from 1950 to 2100 and are available here:

Support ratio for 185 countries

NTA Reference material

Two publications provide background and reference material. Population Aging and the Generational Economy provides the conceptual background and applications for NTA with contributions by many members of the NTA project. The National Transfer Accounts Manual provides an extensive technical explanation of methods used to construct NTA. The manual was prepared under the auspices of the United Nations Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Brief History of NTA

The NTA project began in 2004 supported by a grant from the US National Institute on Aging to Ron Lee and Andy Mason collaborating with colleagues from Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, Brazil, Chile, France, and the United States. Since that time research teams from more than 70 countries have joined the NTA network and constructed NTA accounts for nearly 100 countries.

A few photos from our global NTA meetings. Clockwise from upper left (a) Berkeley meeting; (b) Hawaii NTA workshop; (c) Saly and Dakar, Senegal; (d) Beijing

Thirteen global NTA meetings have been held to date in Berkeley, Honolulu, Tokyo, Seoul, Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona, Beijing, Dakar and Saly, and Mexico City. The next meeting will be held in 2022 at a site to be determined. Many regional meetings and smaller workshops have been held around the world.