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Demographic Change and the Current Account: Theory and Empirical Evidence

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  • Karras, Georgios

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of population growth on national saving, investment, and the current account. An open-economy overlapping generations model with a pay-as-you-go social security system is used to derive the following theoretical predictions: (i) the investment rate is increasing in the population growth rate; (ii) the saving rate is ambiguously related to the population growth rate but negatively related to the social security tax rate; and, therefore, (iii) the current account is also ambiguously related to population growth and negatively related to the tax rate. The empirical evidence, using data from the 1970 to 2003 period for various subsets of 154 economies, supports the following: (i) both the investment and saving rates are negatively related to population growth and government size, but positively related to growth; and (ii) these effects on saving are stronger, and so the net foreign balance is also negatively related to both population growth and government size.

Suggested Citation

  • Karras, Georgios, 2009. "Demographic Change and the Current Account: Theory and Empirical Evidence," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 1-14.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joecas:v:6:y:2009:i:1:p:1-14
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeca.2009.01.002
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    2. Robert Summers & Alan Heston, 1991. "The Penn World Table (Mark 5): An Expanded Set of International Comparisons, 1950–1988," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 327-368.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ghassan, Hassan B. & Drissi, Ramzi, 2016. "Intertemporal Modeling of the Current Account," MPRA Paper 96729, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2018.
    2. Hassan B. Ghassan & Hassan R. Alhajhoj & Faruk Balli, 2022. "Bi-demographic and current account dynamics using SVAR model: evidence from Saudi Arabia," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 1327-1363, August.
    3. Ghassan, Hassan B. & Al-Jefri, Essam H., 2016. "الحساب الجاري للاقتصاد السعودي عبر نموذج داخلي الزمن دلائل من منهجية نموذج التقهقر الذاتي البنيوي [The Current Account of Saudi Economy through Intertemporal Model: Evidence from SVAR]," MPRA Paper 80302, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jun 2017.
    4. Ghassan, Hassan & Alhajhoj, Hassan R. & Balli, Faruk, 2018. "Bi-Demographic Changes and Current Account using SVAR Modeling: Evidence from Saudi Arabia," MPRA Paper 93013, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Feb 2019.
    5. Hassan Belkacem Ghassan & Hassan Rafdan Al-Hajhoj & Faruk Balli, 2019. "Bi-Demographic Changes and Current Account using SVAR Modeling: Evidence from Saudi Economy," Working Papers hal-01742574, HAL.
    6. Ghassan, Hassan B. & Al-Jefri, Essam H., 2015. "الحساب الجاري في المدى البعيد عبر نموذج داخلي الزمن [The Current Account in the Long Run through the Intertemporal Model]," MPRA Paper 66527, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Ghassan, Hassan B. & Drissi, Ramzi, 2015. "Long Run Current Account through theoretical Intertemporal Model," MPRA Paper 71997, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 04 Apr 2015.
    8. Hassan B. Ghassan & Hassan R. Al-Hajhoj & Faruk Balli, 2018. "Bi-Demographic Changes and Current Account using SVAR Modeling," Papers 1803.11161, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2019.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    E21; F41; J10; Population growth; Current account; National savings;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General

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