A new book by Hippolyte d’Albis, Économie des âges de la vie, offers a new perspective on intergenerational inequality, one of today’s most debated issues.

The public debate frequently revives the notion of a generational conflict. Retirees are often portrayed as wealthy, self-interested, and politically influential, leaving behind rising public debt and environmental burdens, while younger generations are depicted as economically constrained, facing unemployment, housing difficulties, and uncertain pension prospects.

In Économie des âges de la vie, Hippolyte d’Albis challenges these narratives. Using new empirical evidence, he shows that living standards have, on average, increased across successive generations, contradicting the idea that past cohorts were systematically better off.

The book also documents the full range of inter-age transfers mediated by families, markets, and the state—highlighting that public debate typically focuses only on the latter. Importantly, public transfers have increasingly shifted in favor of younger cohorts. Overall, the analysis suggests that the key policy challenge is not to oppose generations, but to strengthen intergenerational linkages and solidarity, raising the question of how such mechanisms can be sustainably financed.