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Population Ageing, Government Budgets, and Productivity Growth in Politico-Economic Equilibrium

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  • Gonzalez-Eiras, Martin

Abstract

We analyze the effect of changes in fertility and longevity on taxes, the composition of government spending, and productivity. To that purpose, we introduce politics in an OLG economy with endogenous growth due to human and physical capital accumulation. Population ageing shifts political power from students and workers to retirees, leading to a reallocation of resources from education spending to retirement benefits and a slowdown of productivity growth. Calibrated to U.S. data, the closed-form solutions of the model predict retirement benefits as a share of GDP to strongly increase over the next decades and the education share to fall. This effect depresses the annual productivity growth rate by 10 basis points. In spite of higher labor-income taxes, per-capita labour supply is predicted to rise, as a consequence of increased life expectancy. The equilibrium allocation is consumption and production efficient, but the political process allocates a much smaller share of resources to eduction than a Ramsey planner with balanced welfare weights.

Suggested Citation

  • , & Gonzalez-Eiras, Martin, 2007. "Population Ageing, Government Budgets, and Productivity Growth in Politico-Economic Equilibrium," CEPR Discussion Papers 6581, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6581
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    Cited by:

    1. Gonzalez-Eiras, Martín & Niepelt, Dirk, 2012. "Ageing, government budgets, retirement, and growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 97-115.
    2. Çagaçan Deger, 2008. "Pension Reform in an OLG Model with Multiple Social Security Systems," ERC Working Papers 0805, ERC - Economic Research Center, Middle East Technical University, revised Oct 2008.
    3. Casamatta, G. & Batté, L., 2016. "The Political Economy of Population Aging," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 381-444, Elsevier.
    4. Carmignani, Fabrizio, 2009. "The distributive effects of institutional quality when government stability is endogenous," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 409-421, December.
    5. Kuehnel, Johanna, 2011. "Population Aging, the Composition of Government Spending,and Endogenous Economic Growth in Politico-Economic Equilibrium," Working Papers 0510, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    6. Fernando Martín-Mayoral & Juan Fernández Sastre, 2017. "Determinants of social spending in Latin America during and after the Washington consensus: a dynamic panel error-correction model analysis," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 26(1), pages 1-32, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies

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