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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Hagiwara, Takefumi |
| Abstract: | This study theoretically analyzes population aging and its impacts on economic growth, wealth inequality, and fiscal sustainability. We introduce lifetime uncertainty to the overlapping generations model with heterogeneous households with varied intertemporal preferences, where unintended bequests caused by death are inherited by offspring. Aging can have both positive and negative impacts on economic growth and fiscal sustainability: saving-enhancing effects based on the life cycle theory and wealth-depletion effects caused by extended longevity. When aging advances, saving-enhancing effects are offset by wealth-depletion effects, which eventually outweigh the former. The results show an “inverted U-shaped” relationship between life expectancy and economic growth rate, or fiscal sustainability. Numerical simulation reveals that aging can produce a trade-off between economic growth and wealth inequality. We also show that a rise in deficit or government expenditure ratios exacerbate fiscal instability, economic growth, and wealth inequality under certain conditions. |
| Keywords: | Population Aging; Secular Stagnation; Inequality; Fiscal Sustainability |
| JEL: | D63 H63 J14 O11 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:124598 |
| By: | Lilly Springer (Department of Economics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA) |
| Abstract: | Abortion bans tend to impact the cohorts of women that are eligible for the supplement nutrition program WIC the most. I use synthetic difference-in-differences models and 2017-2023 monthly state-level CDC and USDA data to estimate if states with total abortion bans experience a change in birth rates and WIC participation. I find that states that implemented a total abortion ban by the start of 2023 experience a 2% increase in the overall birth rate in the first 6 months of the year and a 2.1% and 4.2% increase in monthly infant and postpartum women WIC participation respectively, leading to a total additional $8.9 million in food costs. |
| Keywords: | abortion, Dobbs, fertility, WIC, abortion ban, Roe |
| JEL: | I38 I18 J13 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kan:wpaper:202513 |
| By: | Sanny Boy Domingo Afable (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Megan Evans (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Kaarina Korhonen; Yana C. Vierboom (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Pekka Martikainen (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Mikko Myrskylä (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Hill Kulu (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Closer distance between parents and their children facilitates intergenerational contact and exchanges of support in later life. There are mixed narratives and evidence regarding the divergence—or convergence—of intergenerational proximity in ageing societies. In this study, we examine the trends and structural drivers of intergenerational distance and co-residence in a rapidly ageing high-income society. We analyse register data from Finland, a country commonly characterised by weak family ties and a strong social welfare system. Using fine-scale geographic units and real-world navigation data to compute travel times, we examine the proximity of parents aged 60-69 to their children aged 18+ from 2003 to 2017, specifically analysing trends in distance and co-residence between fathers and sons, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, and mothers and daughters. We then decompose the contribution of changing sociodemographic composition of the population on changes in these outcomes. We find that while co-residence is low (10% with sons and 5% with daughters in 2017), more than half of Finnish parents live within 30 minutes by car journey to their nearest, non-coresident child, with parents living 5 minutes farther away from their daughters than their sons. From 2003 to 2017, the average distance to the nearest, non-coresident child increased by 10% to 19% or 2-5 minutes, with father-daughter distance showing the greatest increase. While this suggests that ageing parents and adult children are living farther apart, we find that compositional changes—including educational expansion and increased divorce rates among parents, as well as the decline in co-residence with sons—underlie this geographic divergence. |
| Keywords: | Finland, ageing, human geography, residential mobility, spatial distance |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2025-011 |
| By: | Hema Shah; Lisa A. Gennetian; Katherine Magnuson; Hirokazu Yoshikawa; Laura R. Stilwell; Kimberly Noble; Greg Duncan |
| Abstract: | Household time and money allocations in response to income support programs vary across diverse family circumstances and preferences, yet such heterogeneous responses are not well understood. Using data from a large-scale, multisite, U.S.-based randomized controlled study, we examine heterogeneity in the effects of a monthly unconditional cash transfer on monetary and time investments in children. This study offers a novel opportunity to examine heterogeneous effects of a cash transfer by race and ethnicity, where receipt is independent of eligibility based on other demographic characteristics. The effects of the cash transfer on net household income, earnings, and household expenditures were similar for families irrespective of race or ethnicity, even given initial differences in family structure, government benefit receipt, and employment. However, effects on monetary and time investments in children differed. Latino families’ child-focused expenditures increased, equivalent to nearly one-third of the cash transfer, with no effect on maternal employment or time spent with children. Among Black families, maternal work hours decreased and time spent with children on early learning activities increased, with no effect on child-focused expenditures. Marginal propensities to consume child-specific goods from different income sources also varied: Estimates showed a higher marginal propensity to consume child-specific goods from government income than from maternal income among Latino families, and the opposite among Black families. Latino families’ responses to the unconditional cash transfer and to government income are consistent with the notion that signals regarding intended use of income influence spending decisions. |
| JEL: | H31 I18 I30 I31 I38 J13 J15 J18 J22 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33737 |
| By: | David M. Cutler; Ellen Meara; Susan Stewart |
| Abstract: | The growth of longevity in the U.S. and other countries has increased interest in raising the age of eligibility for public retirement benefits. The consequences of this policy depend on the health of the older adult population overall and by socioeconomic group. In this paper, we estimate how multiple dimensions of non-fatal health in older adults evolve over time and across cohorts – physical functioning, mental health, pain, and cognition. Our sample is individuals in the Health and Retirement Study who are aged 51 to 54 at baseline and are followed for up to two decades. We find that limitations in most domains have increased for younger cohorts, especially pain and cognitive impairment. People are more impaired in their 50s, where such impairment used to occur in one’s 60s. However, this appears to be a speeding up of impairment more than a long-term increase. Among people in their late 60s, health for later cohorts is similar to health for earlier cohorts. To evaluate the implications of these trends, we simulate the work capacity of adults just before reaching age 65 based on the health status of people at this age and the relationship between health and the labor force outcomes of younger people. Overall health among those age 62 to 64 remains high, despite impairment striking at younger ages. However, among people without high school degrees, less than half are predicted to have the capacity to work full time by age 62 to 64, and over a quarter are predicted to be receiving SSDI. |
| JEL: | I1 J01 J20 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33733 |
| By: | Francesco Chiocchio; Jeremy Greenwood; Nezih Guner; Karen A. Kopecky |
| Abstract: | At the onset of COVID-19, U.S. labor-force participation dropped by about 3 percentage points and remained below pre-pandemic levels three years later. Recovery varied across states, with slower rebounds in those more affected by the pre-pandemic opioid crisis, as measured by age-adjusted opioid overdose death rates. An event study shows that a one-standard-deviation increase in pre-COVID opioid death rates corresponds to a 0.9 percentage point decline in post-COVID labor participation. The result is not driven by differences in overall health between states. The effect of prior opioid exposure had a more significant impact on individuals without a college degree. The slow recovery in states with more opioid exposure was characterized by an increase in individuals who are not in the labor force due to disability. |
| Keywords: | labor-force participation; health; opioids; COVID-19 |
| JEL: | I12 I14 J11 J12 J21 |
| Date: | 2025–05–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwq:99976 |
| By: | Cummins, Neil |
| Abstract: | Using surnames from the universe of death and wealth-at-death records in England and Wales, from 1858 to 2018, I document the emergence of a modern ethnic wealth gradient. Historically, Non-British ethnicities have average wealth 2-5 times that of the English. However, this premium has decreased over the 20th century. By 1980, non-British ethnicities have no advantage over the British. However, this masks considerable heterogeneity within the non-British ethnicity group. Europeans typically die significantly richer than the English whereas the Pakistani and Swedish die significantly poorer. Some groups always have lower wealth. The Irish, have wealth around 50% of the average English throughout. Surprisingly, the most egalitarian measure of wealth is representation within the top 1%. Most ethnicities have an equal, or greater, representation in the top 1% than the English, 1980-1992. Despite large differences in average wealth between ethnicities, the vast majority of variation, 97.5% is between individuals. |
| JEL: | N00 N33 N34 |
| Date: | 2024–08–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:124681 |
| By: | Angela Wyse; Bruce D. Meyer |
| Abstract: | We examine the causal effect of health insurance on mortality using the universe of low-income adults, a dataset of 37 million individuals identified by linking the 2010 Census to administrative tax data. Our methodology leverages state-level variation in the timing and adoption of Medicaid expansions under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and earlier waivers and adheres to a preregistered analysis plan, a rarely used approach in observational studies in economics. We find that expansions increased Medicaid enrollment by 12 percentage points and reduced the mortality of the low-income adult population by 2.5 percent, suggesting a 21 percent reduction in the mortality hazard of new enrollees. Mortality reductions accrued not only to older age cohorts, but also to younger adults, who accounted for nearly half of life-years saved due to their longer remaining lifespans and large share of the low-income adult population. These expansions appear to be cost-effective, with direct budgetary costs of $5.4 million per life saved and $179, 000 per life-year saved falling well below valuations commonly found in the literature. Our findings suggest that lack of health insurance explains about five to twenty percent of the mortality disparity between high- and low-income Americans. We contribute to a growing body of evidence that health insurance improves health and demonstrate that Medicaid’s life-saving effects extend across a broader swath of the low-income population than previously understood. |
| JEL: | H0 I1 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33719 |
| By: | Hamermesh, Daniel S. (University of Texas at Austin) |
| Abstract: | This study examines publications in three leading general economics journals from the 1960s through the 2020s, considering levels and trends in the demographics of authors, methodologies of the studies, and patterns of co-authorship. The average age of authors has increased nearly steadily; there has been a sharp increase in the fraction of female authors; the number of authors per paper has risen steadily; and there has been a pronounced shift to articles using newly generated data. All but the first of these trends have been most pronounced in the most recent decade. The study also examines the relationships among these trends. |
| Keywords: | sociology of economics, co-authors, authorship |
| JEL: | A14 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17863 |