We explore the hypothesis that demographic changes started in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are at the root of the acceleration in growth rates at the dawn of the modern age. During this period, life tables for Geneva and Venice show a decline in adult mortality; French marriage...

We study how economic growth is affected by demographics in an overlapping generations model with a realistic survival law. Individuals optimally chose the dates at which they leave school to enter the labor market and at which they retire. Endogenous growth arises thanks to the accumulation of...