Cliometrics of the Abiding Nexus Between Demographic Components and Economic Development

This article assesses the nexus between (components of) population and economic development from cliometric perspective. Based on stationary assumption, Kelley and Schmidt (hereafter KS, 1995) while showed that only demographic variables render robust explanation of economic growth, KS(2001) find significance of other non-demographic factors under extended data. Questions may arise therefore on the uniqueness of the model and consistency of the results under extended data and/or addition of regressors. Retaining the same framework and variables as KS, we observe significant anomalies in the results under further extension of the data. We argue that inclusion of additional regressors might improve the explanatory power of the model; however, unless one accounts for stochastic shocks in the demographic variables accumulated over time, the interplay between economic growth and demography cannot be clearly understood.