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Eur J Population (2010) 26:159182
DOI 10.1007/s10680-009-9186-x
Ronald Lee Andrew Mason
Received: 23 July 2008 / Accepted: 16 March 2009 / Published online: 19 June 2009 The Author(s) 2009. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract Do low fertility and population aging lead to economic decline if couples have fewer children, but invest more in each child? By addressing this question, this article extends previous work in which the authors show that population aging leads to an increased demand for wealth that can, under some conditions, lead to increased capital per worker and higher per capita consumption. This article is based on an overlapping generations (OLG) model which highlights the quantityquality tradeoff and the links between human capital investment and economic growth. It incorporates new national level estimates of human capital investment produced by the National Transfer Accounts project. Simulation analysis is employed to show that, even in the absence of the capital dilution effect, low fertility leads to higher per capita consumption through human capital accumulation, given plausible model parameters.
Keywords Demographic transition Human capital Quantityquality
Population aging Economic growth Fertility
Rsum Les basses fcondits et le veillissement de la population conduisent-ils au dclin conomique si les couples ont moins denfants, mais investissent plus dans chaque enfant? La prsente tude explore cette question, dans le prolongement dun travail antrieur des auteurs, dans lequel ils avaient tabli que le vieillissement des populations suscite une demande accrue de richesse qui peut, sous certaines
R. Lee (&)
Departments of Demography and Economics, University of California, 2232 Piedmont Ave, Berkeley, CA 94720, USAe-mail: [email protected]
A. Mason
Department of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Population and Health Studies, East-West Center, 2424 Maile Way, Saunders 542, Honolulu, HI 96822, USAe-mail: [email protected]
Fertility, Human Capital, and Economic Growth over the Demographic Transition
Fcondit, capital humain et croissance conomique au cours de la transition dmographique
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160 R. Lee, A. Mason
conditions, entraner un accroissement du capital par travailleur et une consommation par habitant plus leve. La mthode employe est base sur une modle gnrations imbriques qui met en vidence le compromis entre quantit et qualit et les liens entre investissement en capital humain et croissance conomique. Lanalyse intgre de nouvelles estimations nationales de linvestissement en capital...