The Effect of the Age Structure of the Population on the Government's Social Security Expenses: A Mixed Frequency Data Sampling (MIDAS) Approach

In this paper, we will examine the effect of age structure of the population on the government’s social security expenses. For this purpose, we have estimated the corresponding function by using the relevant data in the period from thefirst season of 1367 to the fourth season of 1392. The results showed that GDP, general government revenues and age structure of population have positive and significant effects on government’s social security expenses. It means that if the number of retirees increases, the government’s expenses will increase as well. The results also showed that the government’s predicted social security expenses in the spring, summer, autumn and winter of 1393 are as follows: 311903.3 billion rials, 311928.2 billion rials, 312135.5 billion rials and 312200.4 billion rials, respectively.