Economic Effects of Demographic Dividend in Brazilian Regions

Publication date: Available online 4 April 2019Source: The Journal of the Economics of AgeingAuthor(s): Diogo Baerlocher, Stephen L. Parente, Eduardo Rios-NetoAbstractExploiting heterogeneity across Brazilian micro-regions over the 1970-2000 period, this paper examines whether the demographic dividend extends beyond a pure accounting effect. Using a Sys-GMM approach, it finds evidence that changes in age structure have only pure accounting effects after controlling for human capital. Therefore, in the case of Brazilian micro-regions, there is a second demographic dividend, which is associated with education. This second dividend is the far more important of the two dividends in terms of economic growth. In a counterfactual exercise, we show that the accounting effect is responsible for less that 10% of the income gap between the poorest and richest regions in Brazil.
Source: The Journal of the Economics of Ageing - Category: Health Management Source Type: research