The Population Age Distribution, Human Capital, and Economic Growth: The U.S. states 1930-2000 *

Abstract <p> This paper introduces age-based population heterogeneity in the Mankiw, Romer, and Weil (1992)model to improve measurement of aggregate labor and aggregate human capital. The estimation results are consistent with this model, and they indicate a hump-shaped and quantitatively important partial relation between the initial population age distribution and the subsequent rate of economic growth for the U.S. states for the period 1930-2000. This paper also finds that the estimated growth effects of the initial level of income per capita, of educational attainment, and of variables measuring the population growth rate are substantially biased if the age distribution is not accounted for.