Grey power and the Economy: Aging and Inflation Across Advanced Economies. (March 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Vlandas, Tim
• Is Part Of: Comparative political studies. Volume 51:Number 4(2018:Mar.)
• Page Start: 514
• Page End: 552
• Publication Date: 2018-03
• Subjects: inflation -- aging -- grey power -- economic policy -- independent central banks -- economic orthodoxy; Political science -- Periodicals; 320.05
• DOI: 10.1177/0010414017710261
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0010-4140

Abstract

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 article focuses on electoral politics and argues that aging 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 analysis of survey data confirms that older people are more inflation averse and more likely to punish incumbents at the ballot box for inflation. Panel data regression analysis shows that social democratic parties have more economically orthodox manifestos in European countries with more elderly people, and that the share of elderly is negatively correlated with inflation in both a sample of 21 advanced economies and a larger sample of 175 countries. Aging therefore pushes governments to pursue lower inflation.