TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bloom,David E.
AU  - Canning,David
AU  - Fink,Günther
AU  - Finlay,Jocelyn E.
TI  - Does Age Structure Forecast Economic Growth?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13221
PY  - 2007
Y2  - July 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13221
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13221.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David E. Bloom
Harvard School of Public Health
Department of Global Health and Population
665 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
Tel: 617/432-0866
Fax: 617/432-6733
E-Mail: dbloom@hsph.harvard.edu

David Canning
Harvard School of Public Health
Department of Global Health and Population
665 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
Tel: 617/432-6336
Fax: 617/566-0365
E-Mail: dcanning@hsph.harvard.edu

Günther Fink
Harvard School of Public Health
Department of Global Health and Population
665 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
E-Mail: gfink@hsph.harvard.edu

Jocelyn E. Finlay
Harvard School of Public Health
Department of Global Health and Population
22 Plympton Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617-432-1232
E-Mail: jfinlay@hsph.harvard.edu
AB  - Increases in the proportion of the working age population can yield a "demographic dividend" that enhances the rate of economic growth. We estimate the parameters of an economic growth model with a cross section of countries over the period 1960 to 1980 and investigate whether the inclusion of age structure improves the model's forecasts for the period 1980 to 2000. We find that including age structure improves the forecast, although there is evidence of parameter instability between periods with an unexplained growth slowdown in the second period. We use the model to generate growth forecasts for the period 2000 to 2020.
ER  -