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M. Sánchez-Romero, A. Fürnkranz-Prskawetz, G. Abio, C. Patxot, G. Souto, G. Öberg, L. Vargha, J. Sambt, M. Sole Juves:
"Contribution of demography to economic growth from 1870 to 2100: A cross-country comparison of Austria, Spain, and Sweden using NTA/NTTA data";
Report for OEAW-VID: Projekt AGENTA: Ageing Europe: An application of National Transfer Accounts (NTA) for explaining and projecting trends in public finances; Report No. D5.4, 2017; 48 pages.

This paper has a twofold objective. First, we assess quantitatively the contribution of
changes in the age structure of the population and in the stock of human capital to the
growth rate of output per capita over the period 1870-2100. Second, we analyze the impact
of changes in the population structure on the accumulation of wealth from 1870 to
2100. To do so, we use a general equilibrium model populated by overlapping generations,
in which individuals may live up to a maximum of 105 years and make optimal decisions
on their consumption of market- and home-produced goods, and on the supply of labor to
the market and at home. The model uses NTA and NTTA data and is calibrated to match
historical macroeconomic data on income, consumption, and labor supply from 1870 to
2014 in Austria, Spain, and Sweden.
We find that the overall contribution of the change in the population structure -age and
education structure- to per capita income growth from 1870 to 2014 was around twenty
five percent. The change in the age structure of the population explains over thirty percent
of the observed per-capita income growth from 1870 to 1950. The contribution to
income per-capita of the change in the education structure of the population was becoming
increasingly important from 1950 to 2014 and will become, after the exogenous technological
progress, the main driver of per-capita income growth in the future.
Given the current per-capita pension benefit profiles and assuming that future contribution
rates cannot exceed thirty five percent, we also find that the aging of the population in
Austria, Spain, and Sweden will prevent future increases in the stock of physical capital per
worker.