Reprint of: Demographics and real interest rates across countries and over time

Carlos Carvalho, Andrea Ferrero, Felipe Mazin and Fernanda Nechio

Journal of International Economics, 2025, vol. 156, issue C

Abstract: We explore implications of demographic trends for real interest rates across countries and over time in a tractable multicountry model with imperfect capital mobility. We calibrate it to examine how the interaction of international financial integration and both domestic and foreign demographics shapes low-frequency movements in a country’s real rate. In more financially integrated countries, real rates are more sensitive to global developments than to domestic factors. We estimate panel error-correction models relating real rates to various drivers, imposing some structure informed by the model. Empirical results confirm global factors and domestic demographics are robust determinants of real rates. Alternative specifications highlight the importance of accounting for time-varying financial integration and a broad set of real rate drivers. Both model and empirical results suggest demographic trends explain a meaningful share of the global decline in real rates. Given projections, demographics should continue to exert downward pressure on real rates.

Keywords: Life expectancy; Population growth; Demographic transition; Real interest rates; Imperfect capital mobility; Capital flows (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E52 E58 J11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022199625000935
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:eee:inecon:v:156:y:2025:i:c:s0022199625000935

DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104136

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Economics is currently edited by Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier and Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés

More articles in Journal of International Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().