Evolution of recent economic-demographic modeling: A synthesis

This paper develops a flexible framework for modeling population's role in economic growth by assessing and extending a rendering suggested by several Harvard economists. Our framework includes a ``productivity'' model explaining output-per-worker growth and a ``translation'' model translating that growth into per-capita terms. We specify a core economic model and several ``enriched'' demographic variants that include dependency, size, and density. Regressions using a cross-country panel spanning the period 1960-1995 reveal that combined impacts of demographic change have accounted for approximately 20% of per capita output growth impacts, with larger shares in Asia and Europe.