IMF Working Papers

Aging, Secular Stagnation and the Business Cycle

By Callum Jones

March 23, 2018

Download PDF

Preview Citation

Format: Chicago

Callum Jones. Aging, Secular Stagnation and the Business Cycle, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2018) accessed September 18, 2024

Disclaimer: IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary

As of 2015, U.S. log output per capita was 12 percent below what its pre-2008 linear trend would predict. To understand why, I develop and estimate a model of the US with demographics, real and monetary shocks, and the occasionally binding ZLB on nominal rates. Demographic changes generate slow-moving trends in the real interest rate, employment, and productivity. I find that demographics alone can explain one-third of the gap between log output per capita and its linear trend in 2015. Demographics also lowered real rates, causing the ZLB to bind between 2009 and 2015, contributing to the slow recovery after the Great Recession.

Subject: Aging, Demographic change, Financial services, Labor, Population and demographics, Real interest rates, Zero lower bound

Keywords: Adjustment cost, Age-productivity curve, Age-productivity profile, Aging, Business cycle, Demographic change, Demographics, Forward Guidance, Great Recession, Growth rate, Lower bound, Marginal utility, Monetary policy, Monetary policy shock, Productivity adjustment, Real interest rate, Real interest rates, Utility function, WP, Zero Lower Bound, ZLB constraint, ZLB duration, ZLB regime

Publication Details

  • Pages:

    45

  • Volume:

    ---

  • DOI:

    ---

  • Issue:

    ---

  • Series:

    Working Paper No. 2018/067

  • Stock No:

    WPIEA2018067

  • ISBN:

    9781484345405

  • ISSN:

    1018-5941