Baby Busts and Growth Booms: Demographic Change and the Macroeconomy | NBER
Skip to main content
Search
Search
Baby Busts and Growth Booms: Demographic Change and the Macroeconomy
Daron Acemoglu,
David Autor,
Keelan Beirne
& Andrew Scott
Share
Bluesky
Threads
Link
Working Paper 35401
DOI 10.3386/w35401
Issue Date July 2026
The secular decline in birth rates across the globe over the past seven decades has slowed population growth, raised average ages, and reshaped labor markets and the macroeconomy. Contrary to the widespread expectation that these trends hamper economic growth, we find lower birth rates are associated with higher growth in GDP per working-age adult across countries and higher wage growth across US commuting zones, with no negative impact on aggregate GDP or earnings. These patterns are not explained by educational upgrading, rising female labor force participation, the declining importance of agriculture, or neoclassical-Solow mechanisms. We argue that they reflect the endogenous, labor-saving response of technology to the scarcity of younger workers. Consistent with this interpretation, countries and regions with lower birth rates exhibit more labor-saving patents and growing high-tech activity. There is also higher TFP growth across countries and industries. Exploiting cross-country variation in WWII military and civilian deaths, we find that declines in younger population, rather than population size per se, drive our results.
Acknowledgements and Disclosures
We thank Lauren Qu and Joanne Yongyin Liang for excellent research assistance. Acemoglu and Autor gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Hewlett Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the James and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation. Autor also thanks the Google Technology and Society Visiting Fellows Program, the NOMIS Foundation, and the Schmidt Sciences AI2050 Fellowship for research support. Scott acknowledges ESRC grant T002204. We are also grateful to Iris Kesternich for generously sharing with us data on World War II deaths. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Citation and Citation Data
Copy Citation
Daron Acemoglu, David Autor, Keelan Beirne, and Andrew Scott, "Baby Busts and Growth Booms: Demographic Change and the Macroeconomy," NBER Working Paper 35401 (2026), https://doi.org/10.3386/w35401.
Copy to Clipboard
Download Citation
MARC
RIS
BibTeΧ
Download Citation Data
Related
Topics
Macroeconomics
Consumption and Investment
Labor Economics
Demography and Aging
Labor Compensation
Development and Growth
Innovation and R&D
Growth and Productivity
Programs
Economics of Aging
Children and Families
Economic Fluctuations and Growth
International Finance and Macroeconomics
Labor Studies
Public Economics
More from the NBER
In addition to working papers, the NBER disseminates affiliates’ latest findings through a range of free periodicals — the NBER Reporter, the NBER Digest, the Bulletin on Health, and the Bulletin on Entrepreneurship — as well as online conference reports, video lectures, and interviews.
2025, 17th Annual Feldstein Lecture, N. Gregory Mankiw," The Fiscal Future"
Feldstein Lecture
Presenter:
N. Gregory Mankiw
N. Gregory Mankiw, Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University, presented the 2025 Martin Feldstein...
2025, Methods Lecture, Raj Chetty and Kosuke Imai, "Uncovering Causal Mechanisms: Mediation Analysis and Surrogate Indices"
Methods Lectures
Presenters:
Raj Chetty
& Kosuke Imai
SlidesBackground materials on mediationImai, Kosuke, Dustin Tingley, and Teppei Yamamoto. (2013). “Experimental Designs...
2025, International Trade and Macroeconomics, "Panel on The Future of the Global Economy"
Panel Discussion
Presenters:
Oleg Itskhoki,
Paul R. Krugman
& Linda Tesar
Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant #G-2023-19633, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation grant #20251294...
Follow
© 2026 National Bureau of Economic Research. All Rights Reserved.