Policymakers today confront a number of profound developments, whose significance is certain to increase over the next several decades. Some of these are widely anticipated: demographic and climate change, the scarcity of natural resources, and public health. Other structural issues, such as globalization, rapid technology change, and security threats, will continue to transform the world economy.

Who Will Pay?, recently profiled in The Economist, makes the case that, despite the fact that generating debate, let alone action, on such thorny issues is not easy, governments need to enact policy changes now to take account of the potential fiscal consequences of these developments. Who Will Pay? argues that a multi-pronged approach is vital, involving strengthened analyses, greater attention to long-term issues and risk factors in the budget framework, institutional reforms that try to address the myopic political economy biases of politicians and the public, and a blend of aggregate belt tightening and sectoral policy reforms.