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We use a 20 percent longitudinal sample of Canadian personal income tax returns to explore patterns and changes in marital status, with a focus on cohort behaviour. We define five different cohorts, each with a different starting age in 1995, and follow each over a 20-year data period. We consider and compare the changes in cohort patterns, giving special attention to the stability of married and common law unions, and for that purpose distinguishing unions with the same partner from those with a different one. Comparisons of cohort patterns show a shift toward an increased proportion reporting themselves as single or living in a common law union and a decreased proportion reporting married. The proportion married to the same partner declines and the proportion married to a new partner increases, implying some reduction in marriage stability. Common law unions, more common at younger ages, appear unstable but much of the apparent instability is removed when common law unions that would transition to married unions with the same partner are taken into account; common law as a premarital first stage appears to be increasingly common. At older ages the death of a partner is the major terminating factor at the end of a marriage, most prominently among males: widowhood (death of a partner) accounts for a much larger fraction of marriage terminations for women, death of self a much larger fraction for men, reflecting differences in life expectancy and the younger age at marriage of women, on average.

We model a stable population that has experienced an important historical event and the declining proportion, as time passes, of the population that remembers that event. The proportion is determined by the demographic characteristics of the population, including its age distribution, the natural rate of growth, the underlying birth rate, the life table probabilities to which the population is subject, and the effects of immigration and emigration under alternative assumptions about the nature of the event. (We distinguish between “local” and “universal” events.) It is determined also by the choice of an age of awareness of children at the time the event occurred. We preface development of the model by noting examples of major events of the kind we have in mind and, after development, explore the model's sensitivity to different parameter specifications by experimental simulation. The output of each experiment is a sequence of “remembering” proportions at successive decade intervals and the corresponding mean ages of the “rememberers” in relation to the overall mean age of the population.

This paper is concerned with patterns of cohort aging and income progression. We take a new approach to the characterization of relative income, explore the dynamics of age/income progression through the use of state transition matrices, consider alternative cohort definitions, and introduce an artificial cross-section cohort based on the transition matrices. Our applications make use of individual income records from the Statistics Canada Longitudinal Administrative Database. Relative income is defined by how an individual of a given age is positioned in the overall distribution of income in a given year. We derive the proportionate distribution of individuals in each decile group at each representative age, starting at 24, and the transition matrices then show the movements from the distribution at one age to the distribution five years later.

A shift in population distribution toward older ages is underway in industrialised countries throughout the world and will continue well into the future. We make use of a framework that we developed in earlier work to isolate the pure effects of population aging on per capita GDP in the 10 Canadian provinces and derive the rates of productivity growth required to offset those effects. For comparison, we consider also some changes relating to the supply of labour as possible alternative offsets.

We model a stable population that has experienced an important historical event and the declining proportion of the population that remembers that event, as time passes. The proportion is determined by the demographic characteristics of the population, including its age distribution, the natural rate of growth, the underlying birth rate, the life table probabilities to which the population is subject, and the effects of immigration and emigration under alternative assumptions about the nature of the event. (We distinguish between “local” and “universal” events.) It is determined also by the choice of an age of awareness of children at the time the event occurred. We preface development of the model by noting examples of major events of the kind we have in mind and, after development, explore the model’s sensitivity to different parameter specifications, by experimental simulation. The output of each experiment is a sequence of “remembering” proportions at successive decade intervals and the corresponding mean ages of the “rememberers” in relation to the overall mean age of the population.

We consider optional time-of-use (TOU) pricing for residential consumers, offered by a publicly regulated electricity supplier, as an alternative to a single TOU or flat rate structure. An equilibrium model explores and quantifies the effects of such pricing on welfare, consumption, and production costs. The supplier offers to each household a menu of possible rate structures obtained by maximizing a collective welfare function subject to three restrictions: Pareto efficiency, incentive compatibility, sufficiency of supplier revenue to cover costs. Simulations based on realistic calibration of the model demonstrate that optional pricing can increase overall consumer welfare and reduce average cost.

The integration or mixing of immigrants with non-immigrants is an important issue in many countries. There are various forms of mixing. We consider here cross-parenting, the bearing of children with one immigrant parent and one non-immigrant. Our objective is to model cross-parenting as a demographic process and investigate the rate at which such mixing could occur. We identify three populations within an overall total: non-immigrant, immigrant, and mixed. A model is constructed to track the three as they change and interact through cross-parenting. The populations evolve by simulation in accordance with a common stable projection matrix. However, as cross-parenting between immigrants and non-immigrants occurs, the progeny are transferred to the mixed population; the immigrant and non-immigrant populations are thus depleted by the transfers and the mixed population augmented in each generation. The transfers are governed by underlying preferences, but the preference pattern must be modified to recognize constraints imposed by differences in population size. A restricted least-squares procedure effects the modification so that the actual pattern is as close as possible to the preferred one. Simulations are carried out with alternative preferential patterns and rates of immigration. Of particular interest is the proportion of mixed population in the total in each generation and the final steady state. The paper develops a new framework and model to show the rate at which population mixing could occur under alternative assumptions about the immigration rate and preferences for cross-parenting. JEL Classification: J10, J15

Retirement patterns change. When that happens, measures based on single-period cross-sectional data may provide a misleading picture of cohort retirement behaviour. We offer two cohort-based measures. One draws on income tax records to follow actual cohorts of individuals over time, the other on a time-series of cross-sectional surveys. We find that the retirement patterns based on the two approaches are similar but differ, often substantially, from single-period patterns. While pseudo-cohort measures can be assessed more quickly and at lower cost, knowledge of differences across income groups, income replacement rates, and so on, must rely on full longitudinal records.

Mean scaling is a common assumption in the estimation of aggregate consumer elasticities—in particular, expenditure elasticities, but also (implicitly) compensated price elasticities. The assumption is that each household’s income changes in the same proportion as aggregate income. If correct, that implies no bias in the use of aggregate data for estimation of expenditure elasticities. If incorrect, though, there may be substantial bias, especially if there is a high degree of inequality in the underlying income distribution, and regardless of whether one uses micro or aggregate data. We explore this issue, both theoretically and illustratively, using realistic (empirically derived) elasticity estimates coupled with relatively high and low degrees of income inequality.

A shift in population distribution toward older ages is underway in industrialized countries throughout the world, and will continue well into the future. We provide a framework for isolating the pure effects of population aging on per capita GDP, employ the framework in calculations for twenty OECD countries, and derive the rates of productivity growth required to offset those effects. Taking the twenty countries as a whole, the average productivity growth rate (a simple unweighted arithmetic average) required to just offset aging effects over the full 30 years from 2015 to 2045 would be 4.2 per cent per decade, or approximately 0.4 per cent per year; to achieve an overall increase of 1 per cent in GDP per capita would require an average rate of 15.1 per cent per decade, or 1.4 per cent per year. We consider also some labour-related changes that might provide offsets, for comparison with productivity.

RÉSUMÉNous analysons un grand fichier de données longitudinales des déclarations de revenus pour les individus canadiens, en appliquant une procédure de détermination de la retraite, qui est basé sur le revenu d’emploi, afin de évaluer qui se sont retirés et comment ils réussissent à maintenir leurs revenus après la retraite. Cette approche méthodologique peut être d’interêt pour une application éventuelle dans d’autres pays qui ont des données appropriées. Nos principales conclusions sont les suivants. En premier, dans les deux ans qui suivent le départ en retraite, les ratios de remplacement du revenu après taxes atteignent en moyenne environ deux- tiers lorsqu’ils sont calculés sur tous les âges de départ en retraite. Deuxièmement, les ratios ont tendance à augmenter avec l’âge de la retraite. Troisièmement, les ratios augmentent avec les anneés de la retraite, du moins dans les premières années. Enfin, les ratios de remplacement du revenu sont les plus élevés pour le quartile des revenu les plus bas et diminuent généralement à mesure que le revenu augmente ; avec chaque quartile, les taux de remplacement augmentent davantage pour ceux qui ont pris leur retraite plus tard que pour ceux qui l’ont prise plus tôt.

Errors introduced by using aggregate data in estimating a consumer demand model have long been a concern. We study the effects of such errors on elasticity estimates derived from AIDS and QUAIDS models. Based on a survey of published articles, a generic parameterization of the income distribution, and the range of Gini coefficients reported for 28 OECD countries, we generate and analyze a large number of “observations” on the differences between elasticities calculated at the aggregate level and those calculated at the micro level. We suggest a procedure for evaluating the likely range of aggregation error when a model is estimated with aggregate data.

It has long been recognized that taxing a commodity that generates negative externalities can be used to reduce its consumption. One way to do this is to impose revenue neutrality but that may alter the tax rate required to meet a consumption reduction target. We explore the relationships among the commodity tax rate, the demand and supply elasticities, and the revenue offsets by calibrating a theoretical consumer equilibrium model and then recalibrating it with alternative parameter configurations. For each configuration we simulate equilibrium for three policy scenarios: no neutrality, neutrality achieved by subsidizing other commodities, and neutrality achieved by income transfer.

Canadians are living longer and retiring younger. When combined with the aging of the baby-boom generation, that means that the “inactive” portion of the population is increasing and there are concerns about possibly large increases in the burden of support on those who are younger. We model the impact of continued future gains in life expectancy on the size of the population that receives public pension benefits. We pay special attention to possible increases in the age of eligibility and the pension contribution rate that would maintain the publicly financed component of the retirement income security system.

Physician shortages and their implications for required increases in the physician population are matters of considerable interest in many health care systems, especially in the light of the widespread phenomenon of population aging. To determine the extent to which shortages exist, one needs to study the population of users of physician services as well as that of the physicians themselves. The authors study both, using the province of Ontario, Canada, as an example. The user population is projected and the implications for requirements calculated, conditional on given utilization rates. On the supplier side, the age and other characteristics of the (active) physician population are examined and patterns of withdrawal investigated. The necessary future growth of supply is calculated, assuming alternative levels of present shortages. The effects of population change on requirements are found to be smaller in the future than in the decade 1981–1991, in the aggregate, not far from the effects in 1991–2001, but highly variable among different categories of physicians.

Les techniques de l'analyse regressive transversale sont appliquees aux microdonnees du recensement historique du Canada. On a soutire systematiquement des documents microfilmes un echantillon de 1100 families “normales” residant dans le comte de Wentworth, de la province d'Ontario, en 1871. On a tente de determiner l'influence de l‘âge, du lieu de naissance, de la religion, de l'origine ethnique, de l'occupation, de la residence dans un milieu rural ou urbain, et de toutes les autres variables disponibles sur la grandeur de la famille. On utilisa dans l'analyse regressive sur une vaste echelle des variables d'emprunt (“dummy variables”). Les variables demographiques et celles associees au milieu de residence s'avererent tres significatives. On decouvrit, cependant, que les influences socio-economiques, en autant qu'elles sont refletees par la profession, la religion, le lieu de naissance, et l'origine ethnique, exercent une faible influence sur la composition de la famille. Techniques of cross-section regression analysis are applied to historical census of Canada micro-data. A sample of 1100 “normal” families in Wentworth County, Ontario, was drawn systematically from microfilm records of the 1871 census. An attempt was made to determine the influence on family size of age, birthplace, religion, ethnic origin, occupation, urban and rural residence, and other variables for which the census provided information. Extensive use was made of dummy variables in the regression analysis. “Demographic” and urban-rural factors were found to be highly significant. However, socio-economic influences, as represented by occupation, religion, birthplace, and ethnic origin, were found generally to be weak.

Consumer demand models based on the concept of a representative or average consumer suffer from aggregation error. Misspecification of the underlying micro utility- maximizing model, which is virtually inevitable, also results in error. This note provides a theoretical investigation of the relationship between the two types of error. Misspecified expenditure support functions for demand systems at the micro level induce the same misspecified structure in the corresponding expenditure functions at the macro level, and the errors at the two levels are shown to be of similar order. JEL classification: D11 Erreurs d'agregation et erreurs de specification dans un modele de demande du consomma- teur : une note theorique. Les mod` eles de demande du consommateur fondsur le con- sommateur moyen ou repr´ esentatif souffrent d'une erreur d'agr´

The paper explores the allocation of consumption expenditure by the older population among different categories of goods and services, and how expenditure patterns change with age within that population. Of particular interest is whether observed differences between pre-retirement and post-retirement patterns are a consequence of changes in tastes or reductions in income. An adapted form of the Deaton and Muellbauer [Am. Econ. Rev., 70:312–326, 1980] Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) is estimated with data from six surveys of family expenditure and used to investigate that question. The findings suggest that observed changes in budget allocations are most closely related to reductions in income.

Methods for time series modeling of mortality and stochastic forecasting of life expectancies are explored, using Canadian data. Consideration is given first to alternative indexes of aggregate mortality. Age-sex group system models are then estimated. Issues in the forecasting of life expectancies are discussed and their quantitative implications investigated. Experimental stochastic forecasts are presented and discussed, based on nonparametric, partially parametric, and fully parametric methods, representing alternatives to the well known Lee-Carter method. Some thoughts are offered on the interpretation of historical data in generating future probability distributions, and on the treatment of demographic uncertainty in long-run policy planning.

This is a study of the influence of socioeconomic factors on the state of health of older Canadians. Three years of panel data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics are used to model the transition probabilities between good and poor health. Care is taken to avoid the problem of endogeneity of income in modelling its effects, and to adjust reported income to free it from its strong association with age at the time of the survey. Of particular note are the significant effects found for income, in spite of universal public health care coverage. Significant effects are found also for age, education, and other variables.

We specify and estimate a model of the demand for electricity and natural gas in commercial buildings using data from the Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey. Although not observed, declining rate schedules are approximated by a downward sloping function fitted to billing data for individual survey units. Marginal prices (rates), temperature variables and a large number of building characteristics are incorporated into the model as explanatory variables. Demand and rate schedule equations constitute a simultaneous system, with prices and quantities jointly determined. The effects on price elasticities of using (endogenous)marginal rather than (exogenous) average prices are estimated to be quite large.

Policy analysis frequently requires estimates of aggregate (or mean) consumer elasticities. However, estimates are often made incorrectly, based on elasticity calculations at mean income. We provide in this paper an overall integrated analytical framework that encompasses these biases and others. We then use empirically derived parameter estimates to simulate and quantify the full range of biases. We do that for alternative income distributions and four different demand models. The biases can be quite large; they generally grow as the degree of income inequality rises, the underlying expenditure elasticity differs from one, and the rank of the model increases.

Immigration is a possible instrument for offsetting longer-run adverse effects of population aging on per capita income. Our “laboratory” is a fictitious country Alpha to which we assign demographic characteristics typical of a country experiencing population aging. Si-mulations indicate that a very high immigration rate with heavy concentration in younger working ages might be required to keep per capita income from declining. More rapid produc-tivity growth would also offset population aging as would higher rates of labour participation of older people. Longer life expectancy, taken alone, would lower per capita real income, as would higher fertility rates.

Sixty-five has long been used to define the beginning of “old age”. Yet it is clear that the definition is arbitrary, and with continuing reductions in mortality and morbidity rates it will become increasingly inappropriate as time passes. We consider how the definition might be modified to reflect changes in life table probabilities, and how the future numbers and proportions in “old age” would be affected. In a similar manner, we consider also the redefinition of the “oldest old” from a current definition of 85 and over.

RÉSUMÉLes sondages sur les conditions de santé chroniques fournissent des informations sur la prédominance mais pas l'incidence et le processus de changement au sein de la population. Notre étude a révelé comment "les dynamiques d'âge" des conditions chroniques—les probabilités de contracter des conditions aux âges divers, de passer d'un état d'une maladie chronique à l'autre, et de mourir—peuvent être déduites des données sur la prédominance de ces conditions, qui peuvent être considerées comme irreversibles. Les matrices de transition de probabilité ont été construites pour les groupes d'âge successifs, la séquence représentant la dynamique d'âge des conditions de santé pour une population sédentaire. Nous avons simulé la trajectoire de vie d'une cohorte sous les probabilités initiales, et encore sous les probabilités altérées, afin d'explorer les effets de la réduction du taux d'incidence ou de la mortalité associée à une condition particulière. Nous avons démontré que ces enquêtes sur les conditions chroniques peuvent être rendues encore plus valables en permettant le calcul des probabilités de transition qui définissent le processus de vieillissement pour des conditions chroniques.

We investigate the issue of aggregation and disaggregation biases in demand elasticities. Drawing on income distribution data for seven countries we calculate the likely range of differences between elasticities evaluated at average income and corresponding aggregate average elasticities.

"Sixty-five has long been thought of as the point of entry into ¿old age'. We propose a number of life table criteria for answering the following questions: If 65 was considered appropriate four decades ago, what is the corresponding age today? If 65 was (implicitly) a male-oriented definition four decades ago, as we believe it was, what would have been the appropriate definition for women at that time, and what is it today? We address these questions by applying our criteria to Canada, using 1951 and 1991 life tables, but the criteria could be applied equally well to other countries. For other developed countries we would expect broadly similar results." (EXCERPT)

A problem common to many state-funded universities or university systems is how to maintain an inflow of young (and creative) new faculty when student enrollment declines or government grants are reduced, and existing faculty are aging but subject to tenure protection. A generic model is developed in which the problem is posed as one of constrained dynamic optimization. The dimensions of the problem are explored by calibrating the model and carrying out simulations to see how the university would respond to particular demographic and budgetary shocks under alternative assumptions about model structure and government funding arrangements.

Population aging has become a subject of widespread popular and academic interest. In providing an assessment of the extent of aging that is in prospect, this paper makes available a number of projections of the age-sex distribution of the Canadian population for the 45-year period 1996 to 2041 and comparisons with the previous 45-year period. The projections combine assumptions relating to fertility, mortality, and migration so as to produce future populations characterized as “medium,” “old,” “young,” “high immigration” and “low immigration”. Supplementary calculations include growth rates, for both the total population and selected age groups, and various types of dependency ratios, including ones with a range of age-differentiated weights. It is concluded that substantial aging of the Canadian population appears virtually certain but, based on the demographic evidence, the “dependency burden” is likely to remain below the peak levels attained during the baby boom.

A theoretical model and a two-stage econometric estimation procedure are proposed for determining the parameters of industry-region-specific cost, input-demand, or other functions using grouped data. The model and estimation procedure are appropriate when only marginal totals or averages are available, or when data are classified by both region and industry but many cells are empty or sparsely represented. An application is reported in which load functions for the hourly input of electricity are estimated for each day of the week and each month of the year in each cell of a 31 × 7 industry-region matrix. The use of the model to simulate the sensitivity of electricity demand to regional location and weather variability is illustrated.

SHARP provides an analytical framework that for the first time brings together all major elements of the health care system and helps to organize our thoughts about the system as a system . (The acronym stands for System for Health Area Resource Planning; SHARP has been developed for Ontario, the largest of the Canadian provinces.) A framework for discussion is especially important during the current period of “health reform”, spurred largely by concerns to bring cost increases under control. The central message of this paper is that the planning process should be well informed and should take an integrated view of the health care system so that major future repercussions of actions taken today can be foreseen (albeit imperfectly). In reforming the system, it is important to anticipate both the requirements for health care services and the resources that are likely to be available to satisfy those requirements. That is where SHARP can be helpful. With its comprehensive and forward-looking view of the health care system, SHARP can usefully inform the current debate about the future of the health care sector. The main features of SHARP are described and the system is illustrated with special reference to nurses and the services that they provide.

This paper is concerned with questions relating to demographic change (population growth and aging) and its implications for operating a publicly funded health care system in a Canadian setting. It provides an assessment of how prospective population changes alone would affect the share of health care costs in total national income in Canada over the next several decades; it provides also an analysis of how actual patterns of hospital service provision changed in Ontario over the last decade in response to budgetary restrictions in a period of rising demand for services. Finally, a case is made for viewing health care as an integrated system; a description is provided of a set of computer-based models that have been developed to facilitate analysis of the health care system, and illustrative projections are discussed.

The paper considers age-sex patterns of fluctuation of employment, unemployment, labour force participation, hours worked per employee, and hours worked per capita. The patterns are extracted (by regression) from annual data for the period 1976-2011 and expressed in the form of group-to-aggregate elasticities. An additive relationship among the elasticities is noted and used to decompose the variation of per capita hours worked into source contributions. On that basis, participation and employee hours are found to be significant contributors generally over the working age range, but especially among young workers. The results suggest a considerable amount of "hidden" unemployment during cyclical downturns.

Consumer-related policy decisions often require analysis of aggregate responses or mean elasticities. However, in practice these mean elasticities are seldom used. Mean elasticities can be approximated using aggregate data, but that introduces aggregation bias for full and compensated price elasticities, though interestingly not for expenditure elasticities. The biases corresponding to incorrect approximations of mean elasticities depend on the type of data (micro or aggregate), the type and rank of the model, and generalized measures of income inequality. These biases are distinct from the biases (already noted in the literature) when using aggregate data to estimate micro elasticites at mean income.

Measures of retirement that take a cohort perspective are appealing since retirement patterns may change, and it would be useful to have consistent measures that would make it possible to compare retirement patterns over time and between countries or regions. We propose and implement two measures. One is based on administrative income tax records and relates to actual cohorts; the other is based on a time-series of cross sectional labour force surveys and relates to pseudo-cohorts. We conclude that while the tax-based observations for actual cohorts provide a richer data set for analysis, the estimated measures of retirement and transition from work to retirement based on the two data sets are quite similar.

It has long been recognized that taxing a commodity that generates negative externalities can be used to reduce the consumption of that commodity. A variant involves the imposition of revenue neutrality but that may alter the tax rate required to meet a consumption reduction target. We explore the relationships among the commodity tax rate, the demand and supply elasticities, and the revenue offsets by calibrating a theoretical consumer equilibrium model and then recalibrating it with alternative parameter configurations. For each configuration we simulate equilibrium for three policy scenarios: no neutrality, neutrality achieved by subsidizing other commodities, and neutrality achieved by income transfer.

An analytical framework for studying the population dynamics and lifetime patterns of cigarette smoking is developed. The key idea is that changes in the distribution of the population among smoking and nonsmoking categories can be viewed as an age-sex-dependent Markov process and that transition probability matrices for successive ages can be linked to generate the complete smoking history of a cohort as it moves along its age path. The framework is used to analyse data from 1981 and 1986 Canadian surveys of smoking habits: transition probabilities are estimated from the data and some interesting results are obtained that could not be obtained by more conventional forms of analysis. The movements of the population among smoking/nonsmoking categories are examined and the lifetime smoking patterns implicit in the 1981–1986 data are derived and discussed. It is emphasized that a lifetime perspective on smoking behaviour is important for assessing health risks because smoking effects tend to be cumulative, especially with regard to the respiratory system.

The demand for housing is analysed within the context of an overall household expenditure system in which housing is viewed as both a consumption good and an investment good. The risk associated with holding housing as an asset is given special attention. The expenditure system is estimated using Canadian survey data and the results are interpreted. The results suggest that households are risk-averse and that the degree of risk-aversion increases with age.

Monetary/exchange-rate policy can have permanent real effects; in the small open-economy model that we use, a switch to fixed exchange rates can create a limit cycle and a lower average rate of output. This possibility is illustrated with standard parameter values, it does not require stochastic shocks.

Parce que la prevalence de nombreuses conditions de sante chroniques augmente avec l'âge, nous pourrions anticiper que la proportion montrant une ou plusieurs de ces conditions, ainsi que les frais de traitement, augmenterait comme le vieillissement de la population. Combien la prevalence globale des affections chroniques augmenteraient en un quart de siecle si l'âge specifiques des taux de prevalence n'ont pas change? Les taux de prevalence globaux pour presque toutes les conditions qui decoulent principalement de la vieillesse augmenteraient de plus de 25 pour cent, et les exigences en matiere de sante auraient cru plus rapidement que la population - plus de deux fois plus rapidement dans le cas des sejours hospitaliers - si les taux pour chaque groupe d'âge sont restes constants. Combien serait requise pour l'augmentation des ressources de sante? Quelle difference rendrait-il a ces exigences si les gens avaient moins de maladies chroniques? Meme de reductions modestes dans le nombre moyen de conditions a chaque âge pourraient entrainer des economies importantes. Abstract: Since the prevalence of many chronic health conditions increases with age, we might anticipate that as the population ages the proportion with one or more such conditions, and the cost of treatment, would rise. How much would the overall prevalence of chronic conditions increase in a quarter century if age-specific rates of prevalence did not change? How much would the requirements for health care resources increase? How much difference would it make to those requirements if people had fewer chronic conditions? The overall prevalence rates for almost all conditions associated mostly with old age would rise by more than 25 per cent, and health care requirements would grow more rapidly than the population - more than twice as rapidly in the case of hospital stays - if the rates for each age group remained constant. Even modest reductions in the average number of conditions at each age could result in substantial savings.

If retirement means a substantial and sustained reduction in the time spent working for pay or profit, measurement requires a definition of substantial and sufficient observations of the same individuals to determine whether a transition from “working” to “retired” status has occurred. Using the Statistics Canada Longitudinal Administrative Databank, a 20 percent sample of the individual income tax returns of all tax filers since 1980, we identify those with significant labour force attachment at ages 50-52, and follow them year by year. If retired means having no income from employment, the median age of retirement is about 63 for men, 62 for women. That is true for all cohorts. If earning up to half of one’s previous employment income is deemed consistent with being retired, the median age is about 60 for both men and women. Results obtained in this way are consistent with calculations based on Labour Force Survey data.

The Expert Panel on Older Workers made recommendations designed to increase the labour force participation of older workers. We explore the implications that higher rates of older-worker participation would have for the overall size and age composition of the labour force, for the productive capacity of the economy, and for the incomes of Canadians. Our purpose is to assess the potential impact that increased participation of older workers might have in offsetting any anticipated adverse effects of population aging on standards of living.

Any pension protection formula that falls short of complete compensation for inflation has associated with it a time-series of probability distributions of future purchasing power losses. A method of estimating those distributions is proposed and applied. The method is based on the idea of representing inflation as a multivariate time-series process and using a model fitted to historical data to generate a large artificial sample of ‘realized’ inflation sequences by means of a bootstrapping procedure. The purchasing power losses under a given protection plan can then be simulated for each inflation sequence and the sample distributions calculated.

Price and quantity indexes are applied in the analysis of expenditure on physician services in the province of Ontario, Canada, using newly available data files for 1992 and 2004. Price indexes for such services are found to have increased less rapidly than indexes of general inflation and quantity indexes are found to account for the largest share of physician expenditure increases. The quantity indexes imply substantial gains in services per capita, especially for older adults. They imply also an increase in labour productivity for physicians that is somewhat greater than the corresponding increase for the economy at large.

Editorial decisions, based in part on reported hypothesis test results, affect the probabilities associated with those results: the probabilities of Type I and Type II errors thus become different for readers than for authors. The distributions of published parameter estimates are similarly affected. A framework for studying the consequences of test-based information filtering is developed and illustrative examples are provided. The examples indicate that filtering can markedly distort the power functions of hypothesis tests and can induce large estimator biases and increases in mean square error. It is argued that test-based filtering is relevant not only to journal publication but to other forms of information dissemination as well.

Aggregate rates of productivity growth are among the most closely watched indicators of economic performance. They are also among the most difficult to measure accurately. This paper explores the sensitivity of such rates to random measurement error using a simple generic model. The model allows for errors in the input and output components of the productivity ratio, with different variances, and for serial and cross correlation of the errors. The effects of the errors are considered from the point of view of growth rates themselves, changes in growth rates, and comparisons between rates in different countries.

This report has two purposes: (1) to introduce a new version of the MEDS (Models of the Economic Demographic System) software; and (2) to apply it in a series of illustrative projections. The software is designed to illustrate the medium- to longer-term responses of the Canadian population and economy to a wide range of factors on either the demographic side, such as changes in rates of fertility, migration, and mortality, or the economic side, such as changes in the rate of technical progress or the educational attainment of young people or of new immigrants. "Standard" projections are provided, together with nineteen alternative projections. (For some illustrative projections, see http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/qsep.) The range of projections indicates the breadth of applications for which MEDS has been designed. It serves also to provide some quantitative measures of the likely demographic and economic consequences of population aging, and indicates the scope for evaluating policy initiatives by means of simulation.