We estimate the age distribution’s effect on business cycle fluctuations across a large number of countries. A 10 percentage point increase in the middle-aged share of the population decreases output volatility by 15 percent for the average country.

Troy Davig and Michael Redmond gauge the contributions of three factors to the declining U.S. federal budget deficit.

After rising substantially during the Great Recession, the U.S. federal budget deficit has narrowed the past few years. While policy reforms and cyclical economic recovery have certainly contributed to this improvement, an array of temporary factors such as Federal Reserve remittances, dividends...

This paper studies the effect that changing demographic patterns have had on the house- hold saving rate in China. We undertake a quantitative investigation using an overlapping generations (OLG) model where agents live for 85 years. Consumers begin to exercise deci- sion making when they are...

We decompose the household saving rate into precautionary and non-precautionary components. When applied to Chinese households, who save 30% of disposable income, the precautionary motive accounts for two-thirds of that saving rate. For some admissible parameter values, the saving rate increases...

This paper studies how demographic variation affects the aggregate household saving rate. We focus on China because it is experiencing an historic demographic transition and has had a massive increase in household saving. We conduct a quantitative investigation using a structural overlapping...

The saving rate in China is high by historical and international norms. The high saving rate has funded capital accumulation which in turn has been the primary driver of China's economic growth. We review the evidence on Chinese household saving and conduct a small study to assess the importance...