IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdi/opques/qef_431_18.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The contribution of demography to Italy's economic growth: a two-hundred-year-long story

Author

Listed:
  • Federico Barbiellini Amidei

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Matteo Gomellini

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Paolo Piselli

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

This paper examines the contribution of demography to economic growth in Italy by comparing the country’s past, present and future. We use an accounting framework to decompose GDP and per capita GDP growth, and we show how changes in the age structure of the population produced a positive demographic dividend in the past. By contrast, in the last twenty-five years and arguably in the future, demography has made and will continue to make a direct negative contribution to economic growth. Expected migration flows will noticeably limit the extent of this negative contribution, but they will not be able to reverse its sign. We analyze three possible developments, potentially driven by demography itself or fostered by policy actions –longer working lives, an increase in female labour market participation and higher education levels – which could counteract the pure negative accounting effects produced by the evolution of the age structure.

Suggested Citation

  • Federico Barbiellini Amidei & Matteo Gomellini & Paolo Piselli, 2018. "The contribution of demography to Italy's economic growth: a two-hundred-year-long story," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 431, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_431_18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/qef/2018-0431/QEF_431_18.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marta De Philippis, 2017. "The dynamics of the Italian labour force participation rate: determinants and implications for the employment and unemployment rate," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 396, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    2. World Bank Group, 2015. "World Development Report 2015 [Informe sobre el desarrollo mundial 2015 : mente, sociedad y conducta - panorama general]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 20597, December.
    3. Allen Kelley & Robert Schmidt, 2005. "Evolution of recent economic-demographic modeling: A synthesis," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 18(2), pages 275-300, June.
    4. Simon Kuznets, 1960. "Population Change and Aggregate Output," NBER Chapters, in: Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries, pages 324-351, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Stockman, Alan C., 1988. "Sectoral and national aggregate disturbances to industrial output in seven European countries," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2-3), pages 387-409.
    6. Taylor, Alan M. & Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1997. "Convergence in the age of mass migration," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 27-63, April.
    7. Favero, Carlo A. & Galasso, Vincenzo, 2015. "Demographics and the Secular Stagnation Hypothesis in Europe," CEPR Discussion Papers 10887, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Günther Fink, 2010. "Implications of population ageing for economic growth," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 26(4), pages 583-612, Winter.
    9. Matteo Cervellati & Uwe Sunde, 2015. "The effect of life expectancy on education and population dynamics," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 1445-1478, June.
    10. Giuseppe Ferrero & Marco Gross & Stefano Neri, 2019. "On secular stagnation and low interest rates: Demography matters," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 262-278, December.
    11. Gary S. Becker & H. Gregg Lewis, 1974. "Interaction between Quantity and Quality of Children," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 81-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Sandra Gruescu, 2007. "Population Ageing and Economic Growth," Contributions to Economics, Springer, number 978-3-7908-1906-9, December.
    13. Williamson, Jeffrey G., 2013. "Demographic Dividends Revisited," CEPR Discussion Papers 9390, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Lukasz Rachel & Thomas Smith, 2015. "Secular Drivers of the Global Real Interest Rate," Discussion Papers 1605, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    15. Carvalho, Carlos & Ferrero, Andrea & Nechio, Fernanda, 2016. "Demographics and real interest rates: Inspecting the mechanism," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 208-226.
    16. Mari Kangasniemi & Matilde Mas & Catherine Robinson & Lorenzo Serrano, 2012. "The economic impact of migration: productivity analysis for Spain and the UK," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 333-343, December.
    17. Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2013. "Demographic Dividends Revisited," Asian Development Review, MIT Press, vol. 30(2), pages 1-25, September.
    18. Bronzini, Raffaello & Piselli, Paolo, 2009. "Determinants of long-run regional productivity with geographical spillovers: The role of R&D, human capital and public infrastructure," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 187-199, March.
    19. Tomáš Sobotka, 2008. "Overview Chapter 7: The rising importance of migrants for childbearing in Europe," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 19(9), pages 225-248.
    20. Robert J. Gordon, 2015. "Secular Stagnation: A Supply-Side View," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 54-59, May.
    21. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1980. "Testing the Quantity-Quality Fertility Model: The Use of Twins as a Natural Experiment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 227-240, January.
    22. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Jaypee Sevilla, 2001. "Economic Growth and the Demographic Transition," NBER Working Papers 8685, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong-Wha, 2015. "Education Matters: Global Schooling Gains from the 19th to the 21st Century," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199379231.
    24. World Bank Group, 2016. "World Development Report 2016 [Rapport sur le développement dans le monde 2016]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 23347, December.
    25. Jesús Crespo Cuaresma & Wolfgang Lutz & Warren Sanderson, 2014. "Is the Demographic Dividend an Education Dividend?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(1), pages 299-315, February.
    26. Hanushek, Eric A, 1992. "The Trade-Off between Child Quantity and Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 84-117, February.
    27. Patrizio Pagano & Massimo Sbracia, 2014. "The secular stagnation hypothesis: a review of the debate and some insights," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 231, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barbiellini Amidei, Federico & Gomellini, Matteo & Piselli, Paolo, 2019. "The price of demography," MPRA Paper 94435, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Baerlocher, Diogo & Parente, Stephen L. & Rios-Neto, Eduardo, 2019. "Economic effects of demographic dividend in Brazilian regions," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    3. Jing Li & William H. Dow & Luis Rosero-Bixby, 2017. "Education Gains Attributable to Fertility Decline: Patterns by Gender, Period, and Country in Latin America and Asia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(4), pages 1353-1373, August.
    4. Lamar Crombach & Jeroen Smits, 2022. "The Demographic Window of Opportunity and Economic Growth at Sub-National Level in 91 Developing Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 171-189, May.
    5. Yoon, Jong-Won & Kim, Jinill & Lee, Jungjin, 2018. "Impact of Demographic Changes on Inflation and the Macroeconomy," KDI Journal of Economic Policy, Korea Development Institute (KDI), vol. 40(1), pages 1-30.
    6. Julia Włodarczyk & Indranarain Ramlall & Jan Acedański, 2020. "Macroeconomic Effects of an Ageing Population in Mauritius," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 88(4), pages 551-574, December.
    7. Miguel Sánchez-Romero & Gemma Abio & Concepció Patxot & Guadalupe Souto, 2018. "Contribution of demography to economic growth," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 27-64, March.
    8. Michele Catalano & Emilia Pezzolla, 2016. "The effects of education and aging in an OLG model: long-run growth in France, Germany and Italy," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 43(4), pages 757-800, November.
    9. Das Gupta, Monica & Bongaarts, John & Cleland, John, 2011. "Population, poverty, and sustainable development : a review of the evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5719, The World Bank.
    10. Sascha Becker & Francesco Cinnirella & Ludger Woessmann, 2010. "The trade-off between fertility and education: evidence from before the demographic transition," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 177-204, September.
    11. Michele Giannola, 2022. "Parental investments and intra-household inequality in child human capital: evidence from a survey experiment," IFS Working Papers W22/54, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    12. Vladimir Ponczek & Andre Portela Souza, 2012. "New Evidence of the Causal Effect of Family Size on Child Quality in a Developing Country," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(1), pages 64-106.
    13. repec:got:cegedp:140 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Haoming Liu, 2014. "The quality–quantity trade-off: evidence from the relaxation of China’s one-child policy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(2), pages 565-602, April.
    15. Bloom, David E. & Kuhn, Michael & Prettner, Klaus, 2017. "Africa'S Prospects For Enjoying A Demographic Dividend," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 63-76, March.
    16. Siyan Chen & Saul Desiderio, 2023. "An agent-based framework for the analysis of the macroeconomic effects of population aging," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 393-427, April.
    17. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2005. "The More the Merrier? The Effect of Family Size and Birth Order on Children's Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 669-700.
    18. Jens H. E. Christensen & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2019. "A New Normal for Interest Rates? Evidence from Inflation-Indexed Debt," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(5), pages 933-949, December.
    19. Li, Honghui & Hiwatari, Masato, 2020. "Family Size and Educational Attainment : The Case of China," Discussion paper series. A 353, Graduate School of Economics and Business Administration, Hokkaido University.
    20. David E. BLOOM & Michael KUHN & Klaus PRETTNER, 2017. "Africa’s Prospects for Enjoying a Demographic Dividend," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 63-76, March.
    21. Claude Diebolt & Tapas Mishra & Faustine Perrin, 2015. "Did Gender-Bias Matter in the Quantity- Quality Trade-off in the 19th Century France ?," Working Papers of BETA 2015-28, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economic history; demography; demographic dividend; forecasts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • N30 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - General, International, or Comparative

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_431_18. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdigvit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.