What rates of productivity growth would be required to offset the effects of population aging? A study of twenty industrialized countries

A shift in population distribution toward older ages is underway in industrialized countries throughout the world, and will continue well into the future. We provide a framework for isolating the pure effects of population aging on per capita GDP, employ the framework in calculations for twenty OECD countries, and derive the rates of productivity growth required to offset those effects. Taking the twenty countries as a whole, the average …