The present paper shows empirically that the youth dependency ratio (the population below working age divided by the population of working age) reduces economic growth even after controlling for institutions. The institutional variable, the paper controls for, is the measure for institutions...

The German conservative party (consisting of two sister parties) planned in case of victory in the national election on 18 September 2005 to reduce the unemployment insurance contributions by 2 percent and to finance this with an increase in the consumption tax by 2 percent. The present paper...

Recent literature shows the puzzling result of a positive and significant cross-country correlation between the total fertility rate and the female labour force participation rate across Western European countries. The present paper shows that this cross-country correlation becomes negative and...

This paper derives the social cost of carbon (SCC) and its rate of change. It does so in a deterministic Ramsey model of optimal economic growth with carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels. It is shown that the determinants of the rate of change of the SCC are substantially almost identical...

Recent literature finds that in OECD countries the cross-country correlation between the total fertility rate and the female labor force participation rate, which until the beginning of the 1980s had a negative value, has since acquired a positive value. This result is (explicitly or implicitly)...

Industrialization allowed the industrialized world of today to escape from a regime characterized by low economic and population growth and to enter a regime of high economic and population growth. To explain this transition, we construct a two-sector growth model with endogenous fertility and...

Recent literature finds that in OECD countries the cross-country correlation between the total fertility rate and the female labor force participation rate, which until the beginning of the 1980s had a negative value, has since acquired a positive value. This result is (explicitly or implicitly)...

This paper examines causality and parameter instability in the long-run relationship between fertility and women’s employment. This is done by a cross-national comparison of macro-level time series data from 1960–2000 for France, West Germany, Italy, Sweden, the UK, and the USA. By applying...

Recent literature shows empirical support for an effect of demographic age structure on economic growth. This literature does not give attention to the possibility that age structure might also have an effect on total factor productivity. Much of the recent literature on economic growth has...

The present article presents empirical evidence that the size of public pensions is insignificant for differences in birth rates between Western European countries. This implies that false incentives provided by pension entitlements independent of the number of children do not lead to any...