Political Preferences and the Aging of Populations

Pamp, Oliver

doi:10.1007/978-3-658-08615-2

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The impact of aging on policies has been most systematically explored in welfare state studies, which suggest that “elderly power” matters for both welfare state expansion and retrenchment (Busemeyer, Goerres, & Weschle, 2008; Esping-Andersen & Sarasa, 2002; Lynch, 2006; Sabbagh & Vanhuysse, 2006). Previous research has in particular shown that the share of elderly is associated with more spending on pensions (Galasso, 2006; Galasso & Profeta, 2007; International Monetary Fund, 2004; Mulligan & Sala-i-Martin, 1999, 2003; Persson & Tabellini, 2000; Sinn & Uebelmesser, 2002) because older and retired respondents are—not surprisingly—more supportive of pensions (Pamp, 2015, p. 163). Conversely, they are less supportive of education (Sørensen, 2013), and hence U.S. states with more elderly tend to spend less on education (Fletcher & Kenny, 2008; Harris, Evans, & Schwab, 2001; Poterba, 1998).…”

Section: The Political Economy Determinants Of Inflation Ratesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grey power and the Economy: Aging and Inflation Across Advanced Economies

Vlandas

2017

Comparative Political Studies

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What explains the cross-national variation in inflation rates across countries? In contrast to most literature, which emphasizes the role of ideas and institutions, this paper focuses on electoral politics and argues that ageing leads to lower inflation rates. Countries with a larger share of elderly exhibit lower inflation because older people are both more inflation averse and politically powerful, forcing parties seeking their votes to pursue lower inflation. Logistic regression analyses of survey data confirm that (1) older people are more inflation averse and (2) more likely to punish incumbents for inflation. Panel data regression analysis shows that (3) social democratic parties have more economically orthodoxy manifestos in European countries with more elderly people and that (4) the share of elderly is negatively correlated with inflation in both a sample of 21 OECD economies and a larger sample of 175 countries. Ageing therefore pushes governments to pursue lower inflation.

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