IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed006/815.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Young, the Old, and the Restless: Demographics and Business Cycle Volatility

Author

Listed:
  • Henry Siu

    (Department of Economics University of British Columbia)

  • Nir Jaimovich

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the consequences of demographic change for business cycle analysis. We find that changes in the age composition of the labor force account for a significant fraction of the variation in business cycle volatility observed in the US and other G7 economies. During the postwar period, these countries have experienced dramatic demographic change, though details regarding extent and timing differ from place to place. Using panel data methods, we exploit this variation to show that the age composition of the workforce has a large and statistically significant effect on cyclical volatility. We conclude by relating these findings to the recent decline in US business cycle volatility. Through simple quantitative accounting exercises, we find that demographic change accounts for a significant part of this moderation

Suggested Citation

  • Henry Siu & Nir Jaimovich, 2006. "The Young, the Old, and the Restless: Demographics and Business Cycle Volatility," 2006 Meeting Papers 815, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed006:815
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2006/paper_815.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zvi Hercowitz & Jeffrey C. Campbell, 2005. "The Role of Collateralized Household Debt in Macroeconomic Stabilization," 2005 Meeting Papers 120, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Valerie A. Ramey, 2011. "Identifying Government Spending Shocks: It's all in the Timing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 1-50.
    3. Marianne Baxter & Robert G. King, 1999. "Measuring Business Cycles: Approximate Band-Pass Filters For Economic Time Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 575-593, November.
    4. José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 1996. "Life-Cycle Economies and Aggregate Fluctuations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(3), pages 465-489.
    5. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    6. James W. Moser, 1986. "Demographic and Time Patterns in Layoffs and Quits," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 21(2), pages 178-199.
    7. Kim B. Clark & Lawrence H. Summers, 1981. "Demographic Differences in Cyclical Employment Variation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 16(1), pages 61-79.
    8. Ramey, Garey & Ramey, Valerie A, 1995. "Cross-Country Evidence on the Link between Volatility and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1138-1151, December.
    9. Note: For best results & the figures should be printed on a non-Postscript printer. Hoynes & H., "undated". "The Employment, Earnings, and Income of Less-Skilled Workers over the Business Cycle," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1199-99, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    10. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "Has the Business Cycle Changed and Why?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2002, Volume 17, pages 159-230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. King, Robert G. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1999. "Resuscitating real business cycles," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 927-1007, Elsevier.
    12. Robert Shimer, 1999. "Why Is the US Unemployment Rate So Much Lower?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1998, volume 13, pages 11-74, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Alejandro Justiniano & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2008. "The Time-Varying Volatility of Macroeconomic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 604-641, June.
    14. Jonas Fisher & Martin Gervais, 2006. "First-Time Home Buyers," 2006 Meeting Papers 432, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Daniel J. Vine & Valerie A. Ramey, 2006. "Declining Volatility in the U.S. Automobile Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1876-1889, December.
    16. Olivier Blanchard & John Simon, 2001. "The Long and Large Decline in U.S. Output Volatility," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 32(1), pages 135-174.
    17. Craig Burnside & Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo, 1995. "Capital Utilization and Returns to Scale," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1995, Volume 10, pages 67-124, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. L. Wade, 1988. "Review," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 99-100, July.
    19. Diego Comin & Mark Gertler, 2006. "Medium-Term Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 523-551, June.
    20. Andres Arias & Gary Hansen & Lee Ohanian, 2007. "Why have business cycle fluctuations become less volatile?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 32(1), pages 43-58, July.
    21. Margaret M. McConnell & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 2000. "Output fluctuations in the United States: what has changed since the early 1980s?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
    22. Rui Castro & Daniele Coen-Pirani, "undated". "Why Have Aggregate Skilled Hours," GSIA Working Papers 2006-E27, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    23. Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 2003. "The Band Pass Filter," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(2), pages 435-465, May.
    24. Paul Gomme & Richard Rogerson & Peter Rupert & Randall Wright, 2005. "The Business Cycle and the Life Cycle," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2004, Volume 19, pages 415-592, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Morten O. Ravn & Harald Uhlig, 2002. "On adjusting the Hodrick-Prescott filter for the frequency of observations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 371-375.
    26. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2005. "Understanding Changes In International Business Cycle Dynamics," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(5), pages 968-1006, September.
    27. Per Krusell & Lee E. Ohanian & JosÈ-Victor RÌos-Rull & Giovanni L. Violante, 2000. "Capital-Skill Complementarity and Inequality: A Macroeconomic Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1029-1054, September.
    28. Nir Jaimovich & Sergio Rebelo, 2009. "Can News about the Future Drive the Business Cycle?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1097-1118, September.
    29. James Feyrer, 2007. "Demographics and Productivity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 100-109, February.
    30. Ramey, Valerie A. & Shapiro, Matthew D., 1998. "Costly capital reallocation and the effects of government spending," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 145-194, June.
    31. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "Has The U.S. Economy Become More Stable? A Bayesian Approach Based On A Markov-Switching Model Of The Business Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 608-616, November.
    32. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi & Huffman, Gregory W, 1988. "Investment, Capacity Utilization, and the Real Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(3), pages 402-417, June.
    33. Katharine G. Abraham & Robert Shimer, 2001. "Changes in Unemployment Duration and Labor Force Attachment," NBER Working Papers 8513, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    34. Finn E. Kydland & Edward C. Prescott, 1993. "Cyclical movements of the labor input and its implicit real wage," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 29(Q II), pages 12-23.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mennuni, Alessandro, 2013. "Labor Force Composition and Aggregate Fluctuations," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 1302, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    2. Nir Jaimovich & Seth Pruitt & Henry E. Siu, 2009. "The demand for youth: implications for the hours volatility puzzle," International Finance Discussion Papers 964, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Mennuni, Alessandro, 2019. "The aggregate implications of changes in the labour force composition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 83-106.
    4. Steven J. Davis & James A. Kahn, 2008. "Interpreting the Great Moderation: Changes in the Volatility of Economic Activity at the Macro and Micro Levels," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(4), pages 155-180, Fall.
    5. Luca Gambetti & Jordi Galí, 2009. "On the Sources of the Great Moderation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 26-57, January.
    6. Benoit Mojon, 2007. "Monetary policy, output composition and the Great Moderation," Working Paper Series WP-07-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    7. Alejandro Justiniano & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2008. "The Time-Varying Volatility of Macroeconomic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 604-641, June.
    8. Andre Kurmann & Julien Champagne, 2010. "The Great Increase in Relative Volatility of Real Wages in the United States," 2010 Meeting Papers 674, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Gary D. Hansen, "undated". "Why Have Business Cycle Fluctuations Become Less Volatile? (with Andres Arias and Lee E. Ohanian)," UCLA Economics Online Papers 416, UCLA Department of Economics.
    10. Matteo Iacoviello & Fabio Schiantarelli & Scott Schuh, 2011. "Input And Output Inventories In General Equilibrium," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1179-1213, November.
    11. Andres Arias & Gary Hansen & Lee Ohanian, 2007. "Why have business cycle fluctuations become less volatile?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 32(1), pages 43-58, July.
    12. Dimitris Korobilis, 2013. "Assessing the Transmission of Monetary Policy Using Time-varying Parameter Dynamic Factor Models-super-," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 75(2), pages 157-179, April.
    13. Posch, Olaf, 2011. "Explaining output volatility: The case of taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1589-1606.
    14. Vasco Carvalho & Xavier Gabaix, 2013. "The Great Diversification and Its Undoing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1697-1727, August.
    15. James Bullard & Aarti Singh, 2012. "Learning And The Great Moderation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(2), pages 375-397, May.
    16. Janiak, Alexandre & Santos Monteiro, Paulo, 2016. "Towards a quantitative theory of automatic stabilizers: The role of demographics," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 35-49.
    17. Castelnuovo, Efrem, 2010. "Trend inflation and macroeconomic volatilities in the post-WWII U.S. economy," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 19-33, March.
    18. Stephen G Cecchetti & Alfonso Flores-Lagunes & Stefan Krause, 2005. "Assessing the Sources of Changes in the Volatility of Real Growth," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Christopher Kent & David Norman (ed.),The Changing Nature of the Business Cycle, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    19. Urban J. Jermann & Vincenzo Quadrini, 2006. "Financial innovations and macroeconomic volatility," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    20. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Laurent Ferrara, 2018. "Does The Great Recession Imply The End Of The Great Moderation? International Evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 745-760, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    business cycles;

    JEL classification:

    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:red:sed006:815. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.