Workforce Ageing and Labour Productivity Dynamics Ana Milanez Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Slovenia, Slovenia ana.milanez@mf-rs.si Abstract This paper adopts a neoclassical framework to study the effect of age composition of the working-age population on labour productivity and its determinants, based on an unbalanced panel of 64 non-oil-producing countries, over the period 1950-2017. Our first contribution comes from testing whether a shock in age structure has the ability to permanently shift labour productivity dynamics. From methodological standpoint, we try to reduce the risk of model mispecification in the existing literature, that has often overlooked the possibility of cross-sectional dependence in the data and heterogeneity in slope coefficients. We also note the importance of time series properties of the data for valid statistical inference. Our results indicate, that ageing of the working-age population depresses labour productivity growth; negative impact of individuals aged between 55 and 64 on total factor productivity growth is only partially offset by its positive impact on human and physical capital accumulation. For sustaining the current level of living standards, adoption of policies, which forestall the negative impact of older workers on innovation process and promote their positive impact on the supply of production factors, is of crucial importance. We do not find evidence, that higher public spending on education in% of GDP has such an effect. Keywords: labour productivity, demographics, neoclassical production function, panel data Introduction This paper adopts neoclassical framework to study the effect of age composition of the working age population on labour productivity and its determinants, based on a sample of 64 non-oil-producing countries, for the period between 1950 and 2017. Recent empirical work (Ayiar et al., 2016; Freyer, 2007) has focused on examining the effect of workforce age structure on either level or growth rate of labour productivity. To the best of our knowledge, no study has inspected the dynamic impact of the age structure on labour productivity dynamics. Our first contribution comes from testing whether a shock in age structure shifts labour productivity growth permanently or temporarily. From a methodological standpoint, we try to reduce the risk of model mispecification in the existing literature that has often overlooked the possibility of cross-sectional dependence in the data and heterogeneity in slope coefficients. We also note the importance of time series properties of the data for valid statistical inference and therefore carried out stationarity and cointegration tests. Our results indicate that a growing share of individuals in the working-age population between ages 55 and 64 depresses labour productivity growth; ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC PAPER RECEIVED: OCTOBER 2019 REVISED: FEBRUARY 2020 ACCEPTED: JUNE 2020 DOI: 10.2478/ngoe-2020-0013 UDK: 331.215.3:005.311 JEL: J14, J24, E13 Citation: Milanez, A. (2020). Workforce Ageing and Labour Productivity Dynamics. Naše gospodarstvo/Our Economy, 66(3), 1-13. DOI: 10.2478/ ngoe-2020-0013 NG NASE GOSPODARSTVO OUR ECONOMY Vol. . 66 No. 3 2020 pp . 1-13 i NAŠE GOSPODARSTVO / OUR ECONOMY Vol. 66 No. 3 / September 2020 thenegative impact of older workers on total factor productivity growth is only partially offset by their positive effect on the speed of accumulation of production factors. Younger individuals, especially those between 25 and 34, seem to be the driving force of innovation and have the most positive effect on labour productivity growth. In recent decades, advanced economies have experienced slowdown in per capita output growth. Some macroeco-nomic literature has associated this phenomenon with deficiencies on the demand side, resulting in a persistent output gap (Hansen, 1938). Gordon (2014), on the other hand, considers the long-term slowdown to be mainly a supply-side problem, with demographic change being one of the main »headwinds«; productivity growth may be impaired due to a reduced labour supply and future opportunities for technological innovations. Global labour productivity growth has dropped from an average annual rate of 2.9% between 2000-2007 to 2.3% between 2010-2017 (The Conference Board, 2019). Fertility rates have been declining through twentieth century, with the post WWII baby boom period as an exception, and life expectancy increased considerably in the 1990s and 2000s. Consequently, a natural increase in population has declined and the median age of global population increased from 24 to 30 between 1990 and 2015. The reduced size of the more recent generations and ageing of the baby-boom generation implies a larger share of older individuals in the workforce and a growing number of dependents in the future. Without behavioral adjustments of economic subjects to structural changes which would stimulate aggregate demand or supply, the already impaired output per capita growth may continue to decline. In this paper we focus on the effect of workforce ageing on aggregate supply. The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 discusses implications of the neoclassical and endogenous growth paradigm on interaction between demographic structure and output dynamics and reviews empirical work. Section 3 presents estimation framework and data. In Section 4, we discuss our results, from which we draw policy implications in Section 5. Section 6 concludes. Theoretical Background and Literature Review Aggregate labour productivity in country i in year t (j^j depends on physical capital intensity human capital per unit of labour and the level of technology A (Mankiw Romer And Weil,"1992), iHSHS)^1"0^ 0(sit) is an increasing function piecewise linear with decreasing returns to scale. We take the natural logarithms of equation 10. TFP is defined as output per bundle of production factors, lnTFPlt = ln(— )——lnf-) . (13) lt W i-« Wit V H it J K J We estimate auxiliary regressions, in which In TFPlt, -—ln(-) , In I— I are taken as a dependent 1—a \Y/it \ H it/ L variable. This produces a set of coefficients that sum to the coefficients in labour productivity models. The relative magnitude of the coefficients indicates the importance of each channel for determining the impact of age composition on labour productivity. tyit = ßiXit + 0;*;t-i + ai + Ft . (9) Data The goal of the above presented estimation framework is to choose the most appropriate method for modelling labour productivity dynamics across countries. Moreover, we are interested in whether changing age composition has an impact on labour productivity growth, as noted in Ayiar et al. (2016) or level, as proposed by Freyer (2007). Econo-metrically speaking we are testing whether coefficient is statistically significantly different from 0 (implying growth effect) or whether ft = - 6 (implying level effect). We also explore the channels through which age structure operates. Labour productivity is assumed to be a function of physical capital per hour worked ^j, total factor productivity (TFP) and human capital from schooling per hour worked Our primary sample is an unbalanced panel of 64 non-oil-exporting countries for the period between 1950 and 2017. Data for calculation of age shares are taken from the United Nation's World Population Prospects database. Data for human capital index, average annual hours worked by persons engaged, real GDP, and real capital stock at constant 2011 dollar prices are taken from the Penn World table (PWT) 9.1. Global cyclical movements may induce cross-sectional depen-dece of first differences of the logarithm of labour productivity (in Table 1 noted as AlnY/H), physical capital per hour worked (AlnK/Y (a/1-a)), and the residual of production function (AlnTFP). Time series of differenced logarithm of human capital per hour worked (AlnHCH/H) may be less correlated across cross-sections, as common factors driving the increasing 13 NAŠE GOSPODARSTVO / OUR ECONOMY Vol. 66 No. 3 / September 2020 trend of years spent in education may be eliminated. We also expect the age proportion of individuals aged 15-34 (A1) and 35-54 (A2) to be highly correlated due to common drivers of ageing population, such as global improvement in access to healthcare and greater inclusion of women in the workforce. Pesaran's CD test (2004) detects cross-sectional dependence amongst all variables. CD statistics is under the null hypothesis of weak cross-sectional independence normally distributed and boils down to verifying whether the sum of pairwise cross-sectional correlation coefficients is statistically significantly different from zero. For unbalanced panel the statistics is calculated for the common sample as following, CD = JS®2^1 ^ , (14) where Eiti1 Zy='+iP^i is average cross-sectional coef- ficient p reported in Table 1 along with absolute coefficient \'P\. Table 1. Pesaran's CD test AlnHCH/H 17.41 0.000 0.059 0.175 AlnK/Y (a/1-a) 47.06 0.000 0.160 0.234 AlnTFP 42.96 0.000 0.152 0.236 A1 245.70 0.000 0.643 0.680 A2 172.91 0.000 0.453 0.540 Cross-sectional dependence detected in data supports choice of using CCE type estimators and also has an implication for stationarity testing. For valid standard inference, variables need to be stationary or cointegrated. First-generation panel unit root tests tend to over-reject the null hypothesis of a unit root in the presence cross-sectional dependence, if the panel serie consists of common and cross-section specific component, of which one is strongly stationary (Bai and Ng, 2004). Thus, we employ Bai and Ng's (2004) panel analysis of non-stationarity in idiosynchratic and common components (PANIC). PANIC assumes panel variable (Xit) to be a sum of deterministic component (Dit), common component AFtk and a laregly idiosynchratic error eit, Xit = Dit + likFtk + eit . (15) Ftk is a k x 1 vector of common factors and Ak a vector of factor loadings. Dit can be ci + fat or intercept only. Ftk and eit are unobserved and estimated on the first difference model by method of principal components. An augmented Dickey and Fuller (1979) test is carried out on et for each cross-sectional unit. P-values of respective tests reported in table 2 are combined by Fisher method to test the null hypothesis of a unit root, which has a Chi Squared distribution with 2N degrees of freedom. The test requires us to first establish the number of common factors needed to represent the cross-sectional dependence in data. More factors better fit the factor model at the expense of efficiency loss, as more factor loadings have to be estimated. We follow selection procedure proposed by Bai and Ng (2002), who suggest to use information criterion »BIC3« and set the maximum number of common factors to 6. In the case of a single estimated factor, Bai and Ng recommend ADF for testing the presence of a unit root. Test statistics are reported in Table 2 and compared to ADF critical values with constant. If several factors are estimated, ADF tends to overstatimate the number of common trends. PANIC shows that series of age shares in levels are non-stationary due to more common stochastic trends. The unit root in the natural logarithm of output per hour worked cannot be rejected due to non-stationary idiosynchratic and common Table 2. PANIC test Variable Pooled ADF on et ADF on Fk k1 k2 K3 k4 k5 k6 A1 531.417"" -1.574 -3.303 -1.655 -1.831 -1.922 1.342 Variable p-value P 1^1 statistics K AlnY/H 45.44 0.000 0.165 0.237 A2 395.339"" -3.864"" -3.193" -3.552"" 0.060 -3.083" -1.513 InY/H 65.376 -1.610 / / / / / AlnY/H 283.082"" ////// AlnHC/H 272.475"" ////// AlnKY a/(1- a) 295.657"" ////// AlnTFP 302.282"" -1.731 / / / / / Notes: / indicates there are 0 estimated common components. ** indicates that the unit root is rejected at 1% level. ADF critical values for no deterministic terms (for N=25) is for 1% significance level -2.661; for 5% -1.955 and for 10% -1.609. Critical values for ADF with intercept (for N=25) is at 1% level -3.724; at 5% -2.986 and at 10% -2.633. For this test we balanced our panel for macro variables, time dimension is 23. Maximum number of lags in ADF test is set to and rounded to the nearest whole number. 10 Ana Milanez: Workforce Ageing and Labour Productivity Dynamics component. The unit root in the growth rate of total factor productivity cannot be rejected due to one non-stationary common factor. Growth rates of output per hour worked, human capital per hour worked, and physical capital per output are stationary. Standard inference in our models is applicable if residuals are stationary. Results Results of the models in equations 4, 6, 7, and 9 are reported together with PANIC and Pesaran's CD tests on residuals in Table 3. Cross-sectional dependence is reduced but present in the residuals of both CCEP and CCEMG, implying cross-sectional means of explanatory and dependent variables do not fully account for dependence between units. The remaining pattern, however, seems to be stationary. Results of CCE estimators imply that the age composition of the working-age population does not have a statistically significant impact on the growth rate of labour productivity and its components. The reason for this statistical insignificance may also be the lack of variation of explanatory data after transformation, making it difficult to detect any meaningful relationship. This is especially in the case of CCEMG estimator, which estimates regression cross-section by cross-section. In 2WFE model PANIC rejects unit root in the error terms, fixed effects estimator offers meaningful results, Table 3. Growth regressions, with contemporaneous and lagged regressors, for the sample of 64 countries, over the period 1950-2017 Homogeneous panel Heterogenous panel AY/H AHCH/H AK/Y (a/1-a) ATFP AY/H AHCH/H AK/Y (a/1-a) ATFP CCEP CCEMG A1 -1.818 -0.237 0.164 -2.165 -4.571 1.261' -0.580 -7.375* (5.330) (1.150) (0.124) (4.952) (2.948) (0.669) (1.215) (3.707) lA1 2.144 0.220 -0.323 2.574 3.547 -1.028 -0.663 6.336' (4.752) (1.068) (1.096) (4.282) (2.694) (0.744) (1.456) (3.586) A2 -2.148 -0.279 -0.005 -2.612 -4.514 1.669 0.327 -7.463* (4.671) (1.298) (0.153) (4.488) (2.612) (1.232) (1.409) (3.368) lA2 2.319 0.283 -0.170 2.771 4.353 -1.483 -0.438 6.293' (4.591) (1.239) (1.133) (4.148) (2.664) (1.195) (1.379) (3.446) p (CD p-value) -0.018 (0.000) -0.011 (0.001) -0.018 (0.000) -0.020 (0.000) -0.015 (0.000) 0.008 (0.015) -0.017 (0.000) -0.016 (0.000) Pooled ADF on eit 292.463 280.801 323.781 274.357 279.069 291.501 346.265 275.759 ADF on ett (Fk) / / / / / / / / 2WFE MG with trend 0.194 -0.317 -0.338 0.693 0.958 -0.051 0.774 1.718 A1 (0.426) (0.591) (0.135) (0.171) (0.235) (0.310) (0.597) (0.772) (2.326) (0.609) (0.677) (0.545) 0.173 0.285 0.254 -0.219 -0.192 -0.068 -0.470 -1.237 lA1 (0.426) (0.586) (0.135) (0.172) (0.236) (0.310) (0.598) (0.791) (2.279) (0.637) (0.649) (3.098) -0.153 -0.301 0.170 -0.112 0.711 -0.271 0.098 1.332 A2 (0.403) (0.636) (0.128) (0.163) (0.226) (0.289) (0.565) (0.775) (2.004) (0.638) (0.675) (2.782) 0.418 0.270 -0.259 0.491 0.503 0.172 -0.431 0.148 lA2 (0.403) (0.636) (0.128) (0.172) (0.225) (0.305) (0.565) (0.806) (1.824) (0.637) (0.659) (2.589) pe (CD p-value) -0.020 (0.000) -0.010 (0.005) -0.022 (0.000) -0.021 (0.000) 0.155 (0.000) 0.048 (0.000) 0.135 (0.000) 0.170 (0.000) Pooled ADF on eit 298.357 268.906 306.595 294.989 325.543 286.523 349.415 301.319 ADF on ett (Ff) -2.722 / / / / / / -3.668 Notes: All dependent variables are in natural logarithms. A1 = share of 15-34 year olds, A2 = share of 35-54 year olds, A3 = share of 55-64 year olds (excluded). lA denotes lagged shares. Standard errors in parentheses. , significant at 10%; * significant at 5%; ** significant at 1%; *** significant at 0%. Driscoll Kraay standard errors are in the second row below coefficients in 2WFE, maximum lag considered in autocorrelation is 4. Last two rows of each model report results from PANIC on residuals. / indicates no common trends. is average correlation coefficient between cross-country errors, reported together with CD statistics' p-value. 13 NAŠE GOSPODARSTVO / OUR ECONOMY Vol. 66 No. 3 / September 2020 even though errors are cross-sectionally dependent (Han, 2018). Breusch-Godfrey test detects serial correlation in time dimension of residuals and Breuch-Pagan test that they have heteroskedastic variance. Provided factors inducing cross-sectional dependence of residuals are not correlated with age shares, estimated parameters are consistent but not efficient and standard error-biased. We thus adjust standard errors with Driscoll and Kraay (1998) method, which guards against all three cases of non-spherical residuals. After this adjustment, partial elasticities of age shares in all models estimated with 2WFE turn insignificant. Insignificant results may be driven by strong collinearity between explanatory variables. Variance inflation factor (VIF) shows that a large proportion of the variance of the estimated coefficients is inflated by existence of correlation among age shares and its lagged values. VIFs for all age variables largely exceed 200. To deal with this problem, we also estimate regressions in which only the contemporaneous values of age shares are included (Table 4). VIF of explanatory variables drops to 6. Coefficients are of expected sign and their size is in all models reduced. CCEMG and CCEP again report no significant correlation between age composition and productivity growth, coefficients in CCEMG seem to be particularly biased. Estimates in the 2WFE model are significant and are also of the same sign as in CCEP model. Residuals are stationary. Coefficients in our 2WFE model represent how the shift from an excluded age group to a particular age group affects labour productivity growth, across countries, relative to its mean value. Increasing the share of individuals aged 55-64 seems to be correlated with lower labour productivity growth (Table 4). A 1 p.p. shift from age group 55-64 to 15-34 is a associated with an increase of labour productivity growth for 0.35 p.p., whereas a 1 p.p. shift from 55-64 to 35-54 age group increases labour productivity growth for 0.25 p.p. TFP channel dominates. The youngest share promotes TFP growth to the largest extent. A 1 p.p. shift from 55-64 to 15-34 age group is associated with 0.45 p.p. higher TFP growth, whereas shifting from 55-64 to 35-54 group increases TFP growth for 0.34 p.p. The negative effect of 55-64 age share on TFP growth is, to a very limited extent, offset by its positive effect on the growth rate of physical capital per output and human capital per hour worked. Moving from the 55-64 age group into the 15-34 age group is associated with a 0.037 p.p. drop in the growth rate of human capital per hour worked, whereas no Table 4. Growth regressions, with contemporaneous regressors, for the sample of 64 countries, over the period 1950-2017 Homogeneous panel Heterogeneous panel AY/H AHCH/H AK/Y (a/1-a) ATFP AY/H AHCH/H AK/Y (a/1-a) ATFP CCEP CCEMG A1 0.190 -0.047 -0.105 0.328 -0.071 -0.083 -0.390 -0.390 (0.647) (0.078) (0.212) (0.396) (0.986) (0.117) (0.241) (0.241) A2 0.073 -0.049 -0.114 0.229 1.021 -0.192 -0.267 -0.267 (0.603) (0.100) (0.176) (0.775) (0.747) (0.167) (0.185) (0.185) p (CD p-value) -0.017 (0.000) -0.012 (0.000) -0.017 (0.000) -0.020 (0.000) -0.013 (0.001) -0.011 (0.002) -0.017 (0.000) -0.017 (0.000) Pooled ADF on e,t 290.486 262.682 302.743 292.741 295.774 291.804 359.775 359.775 ADF on ett (Fk) / / / / / / / / 2WFE MG with trend 0.354*** -0.037* -0.070* 0.451*** 0.498 0.024 0.255 0.088 A1 (0.045) (0.072) (0.014) (0.017) (0.026) (0.033) (0.063) (0.094) (0.342) (0.068) (0.157) (0.371) 0.253* -0.032 -0.062 0.344* 1.048** -0.132* -0.310* 1.463** A2 (0.058) (0.103) (0.018) (0.025) (0.033) (0.042) (0.081) (0.134) (0.402) (0.055) (0.157) (0.502) pe (CD p-value) -0.020 (0.000) -0.010 (0.006) -0.022 (0.000) -0.021 (0.000) 0.154 (0.000) 0.044 (0.000) 0.133 (0.000) 0.160 (0.000) Pooled ADF on eit 300 """ 269*** 304*** 298*** 330*** 293*** 334*** 341*** ADF on ett (F?) / / / / / / / -3.211*** Notes: All dependent variables are in natural logarithms. A1 = share of 15-34 year olds, A2 = share of 35-54 year olds, A3 = share of 55-64 year olds. Standard errors in parentheses. , significant at 10%; * significant at 5%; ** significant at 1%; *** significant at 0%. Driscoll Kraay standard errors are in the second row below coefficients in 2WFE, maximum lag considered in autocorrelation is set to 4. Last two rows of each model report results from PANIC on residuals. / indicates no common trends. is average correlation coefficient between cross-country errors, reported together with CD statistics' p-value. 10 Ana Milanez: Workforce Ageing and Labour Productivity Dynamics significant relationship is detected when moving to the 35-54 age group. Moving from the 55-64 to the 14-34 age group depresses physical capital deepening about twice as much as human capital deepening, whereas the effect of moving from the 55-64 to the 35-54 group is also insignificant. To reduce heterogeneity of the panel, we also estimate growth regressions with 2WFE for the sample of OECD countries (Table 5). The TFP channel remains dominant, whereas human capital becomes insignificant. Error cross-sectional dependence is stronger in those models, indicating stronger spillover effects across OECD countries. For this sample we also report estimates with age proportions by 10-year age groups (Table 6). Individuals aged 55-64 are again found to be negatively correlated with labour productivity growth. Moving from this age group Table 5. Growth regressions, with contemporaneous regressors, for the sample of OECD countries, over the period 1950-2017 2WFE AY/H AHCH/H AK/Y (a/1-a) ATFP A1 0.223*** (0.047) -0.028 (0.018) -0.092*** (0.025) 0.296*** (0.064) A2 0.121* (0.056) -0.016 (0.021) -0.031 (0.029) 0.119 (0.077) p (CD p-value) -0.052 (0.000) -0.032 (0.000) -0.065 (0.000) -0.053 (0.000) Pooled ADF on eit 177.879 143.830 144.780 162.856 ADF on ett (Fk) -2.680 -3.827 -1.773 -2.120 Notes: All dependent variables are in natural logarithms. A1 = share of 15-34 year olds, A2 = share of 35-54 year olds, A3 = share of 55-64 year olds (excluded). Standard errors in parentheses. , significant at 10%; * significant at 5%; ** significant at 1%; *** significant at 0%. Last two rows of each model report results from PANIC on residuals. is average correlation coefficient between cross-country errors, reported together with CD statistics' p-value. Table 6. Growth regressions, with contemporaneous regressors, narrower definition of age shares, for the sample of OECD countries, over the period 1950-2017 2WFE AY/H AHCH/H AK/Y (a/1-a) ATFP 0.215*** -0.036 -0.107* -0.324*** W0 (0.050) (0.050) (0.019) (0.023) (0.022) (0.058) (0.019) (0.077) 0.267*** 0.015 -0.012 0.251* W1 (0.060) (0.073) (0.023) (0.028) (0.027) (0.043) (0.023) (0.114) 0.104 -0.032 -0.027 0.114 W2 (0.059) (0.093) (0.022) (0.035) (0.026) (0.053) (0.023) (0.141) 0.171* 0.033 -0.001 0.119 W3 (0.073) (0.074) (0.028) (0.035) (0.032) (0.045) (0.028) (0.112) p (CD p-value) -0.052 (0.000) -0.032 (0.000) -0.066 (0.000) -0.066 (0.000) Pooled ADF on eit 175.430 134.619 146.486 146.487 ADF on ett F) / / / / Notes: All dependent variables are in natural logarithms. W0 = share of 15-24 year olds, W1 = share of 25-34 year olds, W2 = share of 35-44 year olds, W3 = share of 45-54 year olds, W4= share of 55-64 yea olds (excluded). Standard errors in parentheses. , significant at 10%; * significant at 5%; ** significant at 1%; *** significant at 0%. Driscoll Kraay standard errors are in second row below coefficients in 2WFE, maximum lag considered in autocorrelation is set to 4. Last two rows of each model report results from PANIC on residuals. / indicates no common trends. is average correlation coefficient between cross-country errors, reported together with CD statistics' p-value. 13 NAŠE GOSPODARSTVO / OUR ECONOMY Vol. 66 No. 3 / September 2020 Table 7. Level regressions, for the sample of 64 countries, over the period 1950-2017 Homogeneous panel Heterogeneous panel AY/H AHCH/H AK/Y (a/1-a) ATFP AY/H AHCH/H AK/Y (a/1-a) ATFP CCEP CCEMG AA1 0.084 (2.225) -0.183 (0.633) -0.183 (1.016) 0.348 (3.099) -1.570 (1.195) 0.216 (0.545) 0.919 (0.577) -2.538 (1.910) AA2 -0.758 (1.931) -0.283 (0.661) 0.153 (1.026) -0.786 (3.125) -2.262' (1.306) 0.766 (0.957) 1.355 (0.738) -5.420* (2.131) -0.014 -0.013 -0.020 -0.015 -0.015 -0.010 -0.017 -0.017 CD p-value (0.001) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.003) (0.000) (0.000) 2WFE MG with trend AA1 0.361 (0.419) -0.309 (0.168) -0.296 (0.227) 0.817 (0.586) -0.610 (1.604) 0.932* (0.427) 0.388 (0.540) -2.228 (2.507) AA2 0.338 (0.397) -0.323 (0.160) 0.122 (0.212) 0.439 (0.555) -1.369 (1.216) 0.300 (0.390) 0.137 (0.519) -3.176' (1.838) Pe -0.021 -0.011 -0.022 -0.022 0.154 0.048 0.136 0.153 CD p-value (0.000) (0.004) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) Notes: All dependent variables are in natural logarithms. A1 = share of 15-34 year olds, A2 = share of 35-54 year olds, A3 = share of 55-64 year olds (excluded). Standard errors in parentheses. , significant at 10%; * significant at 5%; ** significant at 1%; *** significant at 0%. is average correlation coefficient between cross-country errors, CD statistics' p-value is reported in last row. to the 25-34 age group seems to have the most positive effect on labour productivity growth; a shift by 1 p.p. is correlated with 0.27 p.p. higher growth. Shifting from the 55-64 to the 25-34 group has the most positive effect on TFP growth, whereas shifting to the 15-24 age group depresses it by about 0.32 p.p. In this setting, age composition seems to have an insignificant effect on human capital accumulation and only has a significantly positive effect on physical capital formation when shifting from age group 55-64 to 15-24. Our results suggest that the age structure indeed has a growth and not a level effect. Table 7 reports results from level regressions for the sample of 64 countries, in which we restrict P from equation 4 to be equal to - 9 and thus estimate, Aytt = Wxu + at + XtFtk. (16) Slope coefficients on the first differences of young and middle-aged groups are insignificant. Our results speak in favour of the life-cycle theory, hypotheses of adaptation of individuals' behavior to population ageing, and endogenous growth theory. Our findings are also in line with Cooley and Henricksen (2018), whose growth accounting exercise shows that the fastest-ageing G7 countries had a positive growth contribution from higher capital accumulation and negative growth contribution from TFP. Policy Implications The share of older individuals in the working-age population will continue to increase in the coming decades. Policy measures, which forestall the negative effect of individuals aged 55-64 on TFP or promote their positive effect on supply of production factors, will be of crucial importance for sustaining the current level of living standards. The extent to which higher domestic savings result in higher domestic investment depends on the relative return on capital at home versus abroad and on openness of the economy. The possible effect of demographic structure on savings thus adds to the importance of ensuring the stability of domestic financial markets and implies that more autonomous economies will be able to deal with ageing in the future. Higher public investment into capital-intensive technologies may also be a plausible reform. Buyse et al. (2017) find that tax incentives, moderately large public R&D subsidies, and investment in tertiary education promote business R&D investment, and thus total factor productivity growth, to the greatest extent. Aiyar et al. (2016) find that higher public R&D spending (but not also private), lower employment protection regulation, and active labour-market policies also forestall the negative impact of workforce ageing on TFP growth. Investment in education may, in addition to promoting TFP growth, also stimulate number of years spent in education, higher spending feeds through easier access to funding or raises the quality of education, and thus increases the return of investment in it. Larger public spending on education may 10 Ana Milanez: Workforce Ageing and Labour Productivity Dynamics therefore promote a positive impact of the growing share of older workers on human capital formation. We note that the net effect of public spending on education depends significantly on how it is financed (Agenor and Neanidis, 2011), which not taken into account is in this setting. We introduce a policy measure: government spending on education as a% of GDP (P ¡l as a mediating variable for the impact of 55-64 age share () on human capital per hour growth, A— , fjf = /M3t + hPa-1 + MAltPit-D + <*i + Ft . (17) Following Ayiar et al. (2016) we include lagged policy variable to reduce endogeneity risk. The partial elasticity of moving from the 15-54 to the 55-64 age group P+P3 Pit-1 is . The difference between this partial elasticity and the coefficient on age share in regression without interaction term (Table 8, column 2) indicates the mediation effect of a policy variable. This estimation is based on an unbalanced panel of 62 countries for the period between 1970 and 2017. Data for general government spending on education as% of GDP, which covers current, capital, and transfers from international sources to government, is calculated using data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and is available at World Bank's World Development Indicators. Table 8. The effect of age share 55-64 on the growth rate of human capital per hour worked, for the sample of 62 countries, over the period 1970-2017 0.051 0.113 A3 (0.019)** (0.042)*** (0.022)* (0.065)* 0.003 IP / (0.001)' (0.002) -0.012 lP*A3 / (0.007)' (0.010) R squared 0.003 0.006 CD p-value 0.050* 0.090* Notes: A3= share of 55-64 year olds. Standard errors in parentheses. ' significant at 10%; * significant at 5%; ** significant at 1%; *** significant at 0%. Last row is CD statistics' p-value, * indicates rejection of weak cross-sectional dependence between resiudals at 5% level. In regression in column 2 Breusch-Godfrey test rejects serial correlation at 1% level, whereas Breuch-Pagan detects het-eroskedasticity; White corrected standard errors are reported in the second row below coefficients. In regression in column 1, we detect autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity; Newey West adjusted standard errors are reported in the second row below coefficients, maximum lag is set to T0,25. The results in Table 8 highlight the positive correlation between public spending and human capital formation. However, interaction term is statistically insignificant after White correction, implying that public spending on education does not have a statistically significant mediating effect on the impact of age composition on human capital growth. fa+Pj P tt-1 is equal to -0.282. It seems that if anything, higher government spending on education in% of GDP reduces the positive impact of increasing share of individuals aged 55-64 in working age population on human capital growth, implying public spending on education has a relatively larger positive effect on formation of human capital amongst younger generations. Conclusion The results of our analysis highlight a negative correlation between the increasing share of individuals aged 54 to 65 and labour productivity growth, due to their negative impact on total factor productivity growth. The younger generations, particularly those between the ages of 25 and 34 are most positively correlated with TFP growth. This result is robust to different samples and alternative formulation of age proportions. The negative effect of individuals aged between 55 and 64 on TFP growth is offset by their positive impact on the speed of accumulation of physical and human capital, but only to a very limited extent. This effect is, however, less robust. For modelling labour productivity dynamics and its response to changing age composition two ways fixed effects estimator already employed by Ayiar et al. (2016) and Freyer (2007) seems to be the most appropriate, provided slope coefficients are poolable. A cross-sectional dependence of age and mac-roeconomic variables is a possible source of biased estimates. A significantly reduced variation of the data, from which parameters in two ways fixed effects are estimated, requires careful interpretation of slope coefficients. Considering the rapid ageing of developed economies' workforce, projected for the future, and the already impaired trend of labour productivity growth, policies that forestall the negative impact of older workers on innovation process and promote their positive impact on physical and human capital formation will be of crucial importance for sustaining the current level of living standards. We do not find evidence that higher public spending on education in% of GDP has such an effect. The next step is to identify policy measures, which will mitigate the negative contribution of older workers to labour productivity growth. Dependent variable AHCH/H AHCH/H 13 NAŠE GOSPODARSTVO / OUR ECONOMY Vol. 66 No. 3 / September 2020 References Acemoglu, D. & Restrepo, P. (2018). The Race between Man and Machine: Implications of Technology for Growth, Factor Shares, and Employment. American Economic Review, 108, 1488-1542. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20160696 Ackum Agell, S. (1994). 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Econometrica, 48(4), 817-838. https://doi.org/10.2307/1912934 Staranje delovno sposobnega prebivalstva in dinamika produktivnosti dela Izvleček Pričujoči članek v okviru neoklasične teorije rasti preučuje vpliv starostne strukture delovno sposobnega prebivalstva na produktivnost dela ter na njene determinante. Ekonometrična analiza temelji na podlagi panelnih podatkov 64 držav med leti 1950 in 2017. Naš prvi prispevek izvira iz testiranja ali šok v starostni strukturi permanentno spremeni dinamiko produktivnosti dela. Iz metodološkega vidika se prispevek navezuje na zmanjšanje tveganja napačne določitve funkcijske oblike regresijskega modela. Obstoječa literatura namreč zanemarja možnost presečne odvisnosti podatkov in heterogenost regresijskih koeficientov. Opozorimo tudi na pomembnost analiziranja lastnosti časovnih vrst za korektno statistično sklepanje. Rezultati nakazujejo, da staranje delovno sposobnega prebivalstva zavira rast produktivnosti dela; negativen prispevek posameznikov, starih med 55 in 64 let, k rasti skupne faktorske produktivnosti pa je le delno kompenziran s strani njihovega pozitivnega prispevka k formaciji fizičnega in človeškega kapitala. Za ohranjanje trenutnega življenjskega standarda je ključnega pomena sprejetje ekonomskih politik, ki zavirajo negativen vpliv starejših delavcev na inovacijski proces in spodbujajo njihov pozitiven vpliv na ponudbo proizvodnih dejavnikov. Ne najdemo dokazov, da ima višja javna poraba za izobraževanje v % BDP takšen učinek. Ključne besede: produktivnost dela, demografija, neoklasična produkcijska funkcija, panelni podatki 13