This study examines the issue of age-structure transitions and intergenerational transfers from a macro rather than a micro perspective: to what extent might changing age structure, brought about by the demographic transition and subsequent baby booms and busts, have contributed to economic fluctuations experienced in countries around the globe in the last century? And to what extent might intergenerational and interhousehold transfers have confounded attempts to quantify this relationship? These issues are explored here using data for the United States throughout the 20th century, as the United States moved from “developing” to “developed” status.
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
- Saving Rate
- Consumption Expenditure
- Intergenerational Transfer
- Relative Cohort Size
- Personal Consumption Expenditure
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
References
Almon, S. (1965), “The distributed lag between capital appropriations and expenditures.” Econometrica, 33(January):178-196.
Attanasio, O. P. (1998), “Cohort analysis of saving behavior by U. S. households.” Journal of Human Resources, 33(3):575-560.
Auerbach, A. J., Cai, J. and Kotlikoff, L. J. (1990), “U. S. demographics and saving: Predictions of three saving models.” NBER Working Paper 3404, Cambridge, MA.
Barlow, R. (1994), “Population growth and economic growth: Some more correlations.” Population and Development Review, 20(1):153-165.
Berger, M. C. (1984), “Cohort size and the earnings growth of young workers.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 37(4):582-591.
Berger, M. C. (1985), “The effect of cohort size on earnings growth: A re-examination of the evidence.” Journal of Political Economy, 93:561-573.
Berger, M. C. (1989), “Demographic cycles, cohort size, and earnings.” Demography, 26(2):311-321.
Bosworth, B., Burtless, G. and Sabelhaus, J. (1991), “The decline in saving: Evidence from household surveys.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1991(1):183-241.
Collins, S. M. (1991), “Saving behavior in ten developing countries.” In: National Saving and Economic Performance, J. B. Shoven, ed. pp. 349-375. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
David, M. H. (1962), Family Composition and Consumption. North-Holland Publishing Co.: Amsterdam.
Deaton, A. and Paxson, C. (1997), “The effects of economic and population growth on national saving and inequality.” Demography, 34(1):97-114.
Easterlin, R. A. (1987), Birth and Fortune, second edition. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
Fair, R. C. and Dominguez, K. (1991), “Effects of the changing U. S. age distribution on macroeconomic equations.” American Economic Review, 81(5):1276-1294.
Frost, P. (1975), “Some properties of the Almon lag technique when one searches for degree of polynomial and lag (in Theory and Methods).” Journal of the American Statistical Association, 70(351):606-612.
Fry, M. J. and Mason, A. (1982), “The variable rate-of-growth effect in the life-cycle saving model.” Economic Inquiry, 20:426-442.
Godfrey, L. G. and Poskitt, D. S. (1975), “Testing the restrictions of the Almon lag technique (in Theory and Methods).” Journal of the American Statistical Association, 70(349):105-108.
Harper, C. P. (1977), “Testing for the existence of a lagged relationship within Almon’s method.” Review of Economics and Statistics, 59(2):204-210.
Higgins, M. (1998), “Demography, national savings, and international capital flows.” International Economic Review, 39(2):343-369.
Higgins, M. and Williamson, J. G. (1997), “Age structure dynamics in Asia and dependence on foreign capital.” Population and Development Review, 23(2):262-293.
Higgins, M. and Williamson, J. G. (1999), “Explaining inequality the world round: Cohort size, Kuznets curves, and openness.” NBER Working Paper 7224, Cambridge, MA. http://www.nber.org/papers/w7224
Judge, G. G., Griffiths, W. E., Carter-Hill, R., L ütkepohl, H. and Lee, Tsoung-Chao. (1985), The Theory and Practice of Econometrics, second edition. John Wiley and Sons: New York.
Kelley, A. C. and Schmidt, R. M. (1994), “Population and income change: Recent evidence.” World Bank Discussion Paper 249, August 1994, Washington, DC.
Kelley, A. C. and Schmidt, R. M. (1995), “Aggregate population and economic growth correlations: The role of the components of demographic change.”Demography, 32(4):543-555.
Korenman, S. and Neumark, D. (2000), “Cohort crowding and youth labor markets: A cross-national analysis.” In: Youth Employment and Joblessness in Advanced Countries, D. G. Blanchflower and R. B. Freeman, eds. pp. 57-105. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
Lazear, E. P. and Michael, R. T. (1988), Allocation of Income within the Household. Univeristy of Chicago Press: Chicago.
Lebergott, S. (1996), Consumer Expenditures: New Measures and Old Motives. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
Leff, N. H. (1969), “Dependency rates and savings rates.” American Economic Review 59(5):886-896.
Lino, M. (1998), Expenditures on Children by Families:1997 Annual Report. United States Department of Agri-culture, Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, Miscellaneous Publication Number 1528-1997, Washington, DC. Available at http://www.usda.gov/fcs/cnpp/using2. htm
Macunovich, D. J. (1999), “The fortunes of one’s birth: Relative cohort size and the youth labor market in the U. S.” Journal of Population Economics, 12:215-272.
Macunovich, D. J. (2001), “Lessons from the baby boom: Delayed effects of fertility on patterns of consumption.” http://newton. uor. edu/Departments&Programs/EconomicDept/macunovich/agdemand. pdf
Malthus, T. R. (1817), An Essay on the Principle of Population, selected and introduced by Donald Winch, Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Mason, A. (1981), “An extension of the life-cycle model and its application to population growth and aggregate saving.” East-West Population Institute Working Papers 4 (January).
Mason, A. (1988), “Saving, economic growth, and demographic change.” Population and Development Review, 14(1):113-144.
Mason, A. (1987), “National saving rates and population growth: A new model and new evidence.” In: Population Growth and Economic development: Issues and Evidence, D. G. Johnson and R. D. Lee, eds. pp. 523-560. University of Wisconsin Press: Madison.
Schmidt, P. and Mann, W. R. (1977), “A note on the approximation of arbitrary distributed lag structures by a modified Almon lag (in Theory and Methods).” Journal of the American Statistical Association, 72(358):442-443.
Schmidt, P. and Sickles, R. (1975), “On the efficiency of the Almon lag technique.” International Economic Review, 16(3):792-795.
Stoker, T. (1986), “Simple tests of distributional effects on macroeconomic equations.” Journal of Political Economy, 94(4):763-795.
Taylor, A. M. (1995), “Debt, dependence and the demographic transition: Latin America into the next century.” World Development, 23(5):869-879.
Taylor, A. M. and Williamson, J. G. (1994), “Capital flows to the new world as an intergenerational transfer.” The Journal of Political Economy, 102(2):348-371.
Terasvita, T. (1976), “A note on bias in the Almon distributed lag estimator.” Econometrica, 44(6):1317-1321.
Tobin, J. (1967), “Life cycle saving and balanced growth.” In: Ten Economics Studies in the Tradition of Irving Fisher, W. Fellner, et al. eds. Wiley and Sons: New York.
Weil, D. N. (1994), “The saving of the elderly in micro and macro data.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 109(1):55-81.
Welch, F. (1979), “Effects of cohort size on earnings: The baby boom babies’ financial bust.” Journal of Political Economy, 87(5, pt. 2):S65-S97.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Macunovich, D.J. (2007). Effects of Changing Age Structure and Intergenerational Transfers on Patterns of Consumption and Saving. In: Gauthier, A.H., Chu, C.Y.C., Tuljapurkar, S. (eds) Allocating Public and Private Resources across Generations. International Studies In Population, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4481-6_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4481-6_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-4480-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-4481-6
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)