The Impact of Demography on the Real Exchange Rate

Theory predicts that life cycle saving mechanisms will cause real exchange rate variations as the age structure varies. We investigate the impact of demography on the Swedish real exchange rate, measured as the real TCW index, during 1960 to 2000. Time series regressions show that the Swedish demographic structure has significant explanatory power on the real exchange rate. A model using age shares alone as regressors is used for medium term out-of-sample forecasts, outperforming both a naive forecast and forecasts based on an autoregressive model. Finally we use the estimated model in order to make forecasts of the Swedish real exchange rate up to 2015. The model predicts that the Swedish age structure will have a depreciating effect on the real exchange rate up to 2007 followed by an appreciating effect in the end of the forecasting period.