Working Paper: NBER ID: w23077
Authors: Daron Acemoglu; Pascual Restrepo
Abstract: Several recent theories emphasize the negative effects of an aging population on economic growth, either because of the lower labor force participation and productivity of older workers or because aging will create an excess of savings over desired investment, leading to secular stagnation. We show that there is no such negative relationship in the data. If anything, countries experiencing more rapid aging have grown more in recent decades. We suggest that this counterintuitive finding might reflect the more rapid adoption of automation technologies in countries undergoing more pronounced demographic changes, and provide evidence and theoretical underpinnings for this argument.
Keywords: Aging; Economic Growth; Automation; Secular Stagnation
JEL Codes: E30; J11; J24; O33; O47; O57
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Aging (J14) | Adoption of automation technologies (O14) |
| Adoption of automation technologies (O14) | GDP per capita (O49) |
| Technological adjustments (O33) | Economic growth (O49) |
| Initial GDP per capita and demographic composition (E20) | Aging (J14) |
| Aging (J14) | GDP per capita (O49) |
| Aging (J14) | Economic growth (O49) |