The magnitude of future government obligations to fund Social Security payments for the retiring baby-boom generation and the growing costs of providing medical care to the elderly add to the urgency to put government debt on a sustainable long-term path. Doing so sooner rather than later would make the necessary adjustments easier and diminish the likelihood of significant future economic disruptions.
Furthermore, the global mobility of intangible assets means that it is also difficult to attribute the production and use of such assets to particular jurisdictions.4 The balance of evidence suggests that Europe is somewhat lagging behind its counterparts in the development of the digital sector.