How powerful is demography? The Serendipity Theorem revisited

David de la Croix, Pierre Pestieau and Gregory Ponthiere

PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) from HAL

Abstract: Introduced by Samuelson (Int Econ Rev 16(3):531-538, 1975), the Serendipity Theorem states that the competitive economy will converge towards the optimum steady-state provided the optimum fertility rate is imposed. This paper aims at exploring whether the Serendipity Theorem still holds in an economy with risky lifetime. We show that, under general conditions, including a perfect annuity market with actuarially fair return, imposing the optimum fertility rate and the optimum survival rate leads the competitive economy to the optimum steady state. That Extended Serendipity Theorem is also shown to hold in economies where old adults work some fraction of the old age, whatever the retirement age is fixed or chosen by the agents.

Keywords: Fertility; Mortality; Overlapping generations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-07
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Published in Journal of Population Economics, 2012, 25 (3), pp.899-922. ⟨10.1007/s00148-011-0362-z⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: How powerful is demography? The Serendipity Theorem revisited (2012)
Working Paper: How powerful is demography? The Serendipity Theorem revisited (2012)
Working Paper: How powerful is demography? The Serendipity Theorem revisited (2012)
Working Paper: How powerful is demography ? The Serendipity Theorem revisited (2009)
Working Paper: How Powerful is Demography? The Serendipity Theorem Revisited (2009)
Working Paper: How Powerful is Demography? The Serendipity Theorem Revisited (2009)
Working Paper: How Powerful is Demography? The Serendipity Theorem Revisited (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:pseptp:halshs-00754584

DOI: 10.1007/s00148-011-0362-z

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Caroline Bauer ().