IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/luc/wpaper/20-15.html

Automation, Growth, an Factor Shares in the Era of Population Aging

Author

Listed:
  • Andreas Irmen

    (Department of Economics and Management, Université du Luxembourg)

Abstract

(To consult this DP, please send an e-mail to dem@uni.lu) How does population aging affect economic growth and factor shares in times of increasingly automatable production processes? The present paper addresses this question in a new macroeconomic model of automation where competitive firms perform tasks to produce output. Tasks require labor and machines as inputs. New machines embody superior technological knowledge and substitute for labor in the performance of tasks. The incentive to automate is stronger if wages are higher. Automation is shown to boost the aggregate demand for labor if and only if the incentives to automate are strong enough and to reduce the labor share. These predictions obtain even though automation is labor-augmenting in the reduced-form production function. Population aging due to a higher longevity or a decline in fertility may strengthen or weaken the incentives to automate. Irrespective of its source, population aging is predicted to increase the growth rate of per-capita GDP in the short and in the long run. The short-run effect of higher longevity on the labor share is positive whereas the effect of a declining fertility is negative. In the long run, population aging reduces the labor share.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreas Irmen, 2020. "Automation, Growth, an Factor Shares in the Era of Population Aging," DEM Discussion Paper Series 20-15, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:luc:wpaper:20-15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.uni.lu/fdef-en/research-departments/department-of-economics-and-management/publications/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Orlando Gomes, 2025. "The Human Capital — Artificial Intelligence Symbiosis and Economic Growth," De Economist, Springer, vol. 173(2), pages 331-365, July.
    2. Gomes Orlando, 2024. "Economic Growth in the Age of Ubiquitous Threats: How Global Risks are Reshaping Growth Theory," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 18(1), pages 1-15, January.
    3. Zhang, Jingting & Shi, Zhiru, 2025. "Suppress or let go? The time-varying roles of automation towards labor market," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 158-174.
    4. Chia‐Hui Lu, 2023. "The macroeconomic impact of automation: Applications to elderly care," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(4), pages 674-695, October.
    5. Stähler, Nikolai, 2021. "The Impact of Aging and Automation on the Macroeconomy and Inequality," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    6. Arthur Jacobs & Luca Zamparelli, 2025. "Towards a Political Economy of Automation," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 25/1120, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    7. Maydell, Richard & Firth, John, 2025. "Tilting the Race Between Humans and AI: The Role of Education and Unemployment Policies," VfS Annual Conference 2025 (Cologne): Revival of Industrial Policy 325460, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Andreas Irmen & Maria Krelifa & Johanna Kuehnel, 2025. "Population Ageing, Economic Growth and the Composition of Government Expenditure," DEM Discussion Paper Series 25-15, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    9. Burkhard Heer & Andreas Irmen & Bernd Süssmuth, 2023. "Explaining the decline in the US labor share: taxation and automation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(6), pages 1481-1528, December.
    10. Orlando Gomes, 2023. "Economic Growth Theory in the Twenty-First Century," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 24(1), pages 39-67, May.
    11. Felix FitzRoy & Jim Jin, 2024. "Less work and higher tax can raise wellbeing," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 92(5), pages 539-555, September.
    12. Iong, Ka-Kit & Irmen, Andreas, 2021. "The supply of hours worked and fluctuations between growth regimes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    13. Li, Chao & Lao, Wenyu & Li, Xiang & Zhang, Yuhan, 2024. "Automated workforce, financial precarities and family consumption: The importance of demand-side policies under the background of automation applications," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 1287-1308.
    14. Akira Yakita, 2022. "Automation, fertility, and labor share in an aging, overlapping generations economy," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(2), pages 889-894.
    15. Peralta, Catarina & Gil, Pedro Mazeda, 2025. "Automation, education, and population: Dynamic effects in an OLG growth and fertility model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    16. Aisa, Rosa & Cabeza, Josefina & Martin, Jorge, 2023. "Automation and aging: The impact on older workers in the workforce," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    17. Zhiwei Liu & Yonglei Fang & Lei Ma, 2022. "A Study on the Impact of Population Age Structure Change on Economic Growth in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-15, March.
    18. Wang, Linhui & Cao, Zhanglu & Dong, Zhiqing, 2023. "Are artificial intelligence dividends evenly distributed between profits and wages? Evidence from the private enterprise survey data in China," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 342-356.
    19. Sasaki, Hiroaki, 2023. "Growth with automation capital and declining population," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    20. Arthur Jacobs & Freddy Heylen, 2021. "Demographic change, secular stagnation and inequality: automation as a blessing?," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 21/1030, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    21. Kevin Genna & Christian Ghiglino & Kazuo Nishimura & Alain Venditti, 2024. "Knowledge-based structural change," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 78(4), pages 1333-1388, December.
    22. Chih-Hai Yang & Chu-Ping Lo, 2025. "Demographic Structure and Comparative Advantages: Theory and Evidence," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 26(1), pages 311-332, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models

    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:luc:wpaper:20-15. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Marina Legrand (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/crcrplu.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.