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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Marie-Louise Leroux; Pierre Pestieau; Gregory Ponthiere |
| Abstract: | We study the design of a fair family policy in an economy where parenthood is regarded either as desirable or as undesirable, and where there is imperfect fertility control, leading to involuntary childlessness/parenthood. Using an equivalent consumption approach in the consumption-fertility space, we first show that the identification of the worst-off individuals is not robust to how the social evaluator fixes the reference fertility level. Adopting the ex post egalitarian social criterion, which gives priority to the worst off in realized terms, we then examine the compensation for involuntary childlessness/parenthood. Unlike real-world family policies, a fair family policy does not always involve positive family allowances to (voluntary) parents, and may also, under some reference fertility levels, involve positive childlessness allowances. Our results are robust to assuming asymmetric information and to introducing Assisted Reproductive Technologies. |
| Keywords: | fertility, childlessness, family policy, compensation, fairness. |
| JEL: | J13 I38 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsi:creeic:1907&r=all |
| By: | Noëmie Lisack; Rana Sajedi; Gregory Thwaites |
| Abstract: | We quantify the impact of demographic change on real interest rates, house prices and household debt in an overlapping-generations model. Falling birth and death rates across advanced economies can explain much of the observed fall in real interest rates and the rise in house prices and household debt. Since households maintain relatively high wealth levels throughout retirement, these trends will persist as population ageing continues. Countries ageing relatively slowly, like the US, will increasingly accumulate net foreign liabilities. The availability of housing as an alternative store of value attenuates these trends, while raising the retirement age has limited effects. |
| Keywords: | : Demographics, ageing, natural interest rates, macroeconomic trends. |
| JEL: | E21 E43 E13 J11 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:745&r=all |
| By: | Obrizan, Maksym; Karlsson, Martin; Matvieiev, Mykhailo |
| Abstract: | What is the economic cost in the medium to long run of an epidemic that kills a large part of the labor force? To answer this question we build an overlapping generations model and calibrate it to the Swedish economy before the 1918–19 influenza pandemic. In the medium run the epidemic, which reduced the population by 0.66%, produces a modest increase in per capita consumption of survivors by 0.45%; however, the benefits are unevenly spread across cohorts. We also find that aggregate labor supply responds elastically while aggregate consumption and investment respond inelastically to the population decline. The aggregate consumption, for example, reduces by 0.27% only for each percentage point decrease in population over the following 10 years. Finally, we document that in the long run, the epidemic has a large cumulative effect over the following century. |
| Keywords: | Epidemics, Overlapping Generations Models |
| JEL: | E21 I15 |
| Date: | 2020–03–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:98910&r=all |
| By: | Röhe, Oke; Stähler, Nikolai |
| Abstract: | Since the mid-1970s, firm entry rates in the United States have declined significantly. This also holds for other OECD countries over the past years. At the same time, these economies experienced a gradual process of population aging. Applying a tractable life-cycle model with endogenous firm dynamics, we show that falling US firm entry rates can be explained by demographic transition. Specifically, our model simulations suggest that aging can account for up to one third of the observed decrease in US firm entry rates. In addition to the negative effects of a slowdown in working-age population growth on firm entry, our analysis points out that an increase in longevity may also be an important factor contributing to the decline in business dynamism, weighing on both firm entry and exit rates. |
| Keywords: | Life-Cycle model,Population aging,Business dynamism,Firm entry |
| JEL: | H25 L52 E20 E62 L10 O30 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bubdps:152020&r=all |