In an influential paper Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992) argue that evidence on the international disparity in levels of per-capita income and rates of growth is consistent with a standard Solow model, once it has been augmented to include human capital as an accumulable factor. In a study on...

This paper documents the existence of a slowly evolving trend in the dividend-price ratio, dpt, determined by a demographic variable, MY: the middle-aged to young ratio. Deviations of dpt from this long-run component explain transitory but persistent fluctuations in stock market returns. The...

In the coming decades, the share of people in working age will fall significantly in most developed countries. According to optimal taxation theory, public debts should be reduced before the baby-boom generation retires. I find that if debts are instead maintained at the current levels, welfare...

It is well known that over the next few decades there will be significant changes in the demographic structures of nearly all developed countries; in the absence of massive immigration, or of catastrophic new fatal illnesses, by the middle of the next century the ratio of people of working age...

We analyse a 1960-96 panel of OECD countries to explain why the US has moved from relatively high to relatively low unemployment over the last three decades. We find that while macroeconomic and demographic shocks and changing labor market institutions explain a modest portion of this change,...

This paper examines the implications of labour force growth in one region for wages, employment, and production patterns in other regions. These issues are first explored in a stylized dual model incorporating features of both standard factor-based trade models and models of two-way trade and...

This Paper uses stochastic simulations on calibrated models to assess the steady state impact of different pension arrangements in an environment where financial markets are less than perfect. Surprisingly little is known about the optimal split between funded and unfunded systems when there are...

In this paper we perform simulations with a stylized model of Germany and the United Kingdom to show which generations might be direct gainers, and which losers, from a transition to funded state pensions. We estimate what the structure of inter-generational bequests would need to be in a...