Individuals aged 65 years and older currently make up a larger share of the population than ever before, and this group is predicted to continue growing both in absolute terms and relative to the rest of the population. This chapter begins by introducing the facts, figures, and forecasts...

We study the impact of endogenous longevity on optimal tax progressivity and inequality in an overlapping generations model with skill heterogeneity. Higher tax progressivity decreases both the longevity gap and net income inequality, but at the expense of lower average lifetime and lower...

A critical part of adapting to the higher temperatures that climate change brings will be the deployment of existing technologies to new sectors and regions. This paper examines the evolution of the temperature-mortality relationship over the course of the entire 20th century in the United...

In an effort to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries around the globe adopted social distancing measures. Previous studies have relied on the geographical and temporal variation in the adoption of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to show that early adoption of NPIs...

Dean Baker and Adriane Fugh-Berman have published a critique of a study I performed in 2007, entitled "Why has longevity increased more in some states than in others?ʺ One of the conclusions I drew from that study was that medical innovation accounts for a substantial portion of recent...

Our societies are witnessing a steady increase in longevity. This demographic evolution is accompanied by some convergence across countries, whereas substantial longevity inequalities persist within nations. The goal of this paper is to survey some crucial implications of changing longevity on...

In this paper we describe and analyse a demographic data base that has been gathered for several EU countries under a research project called AGIR. The project tries to establish facts and evidence on the ageing process in EU countries and relate this process with health and retirement issues....

Since World War II, mortality has declined in the developing world. This paper examines the effects of this mortality decline on demographic and economic growth by a family-optimization model, in which fertility is endogenous and wealth yields utility through its status. The decline in mortality...

A recent literature highlights the uncertainty concerning whether economic growth has any causal protective effect on health and survival. But equal rates of growth often deliver unequal rates of poverty reduction and absolute deprivation is more clearly relevant. Using state-level panel data...

We propose a unified growth theory to investigate the mechanics generating the economic and demographic transition, and the role of mortality differences for comparative development. The framework can replicate the quantitative patterns in historical time series data and in contemporaneous...