Europe is ageing rapidly; population projections indicate that the old-age dependency ratio there will more than double between now and 2050. A crucial question is how sustainable the economic institutions which mediate age-related flows in our economies – these are the public sector, the family, and capital markets – are in the face of this population ageing. This paper briefly reviews the concept of National Transfer Accounts (NTA’s), which attempt to quantify these economic flows in a manner consistent with National Accounts, presents first estimates of NTA’s for the UK in 2007, and provides a short comparison of UK age-related economic flows with some European and other NTA countries. Some applications of NTA’s will also be briefly discussed.

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