Abstract
The economic and social fortunes of a birth cohort tend to vary as a function of that cohort’s relative size, approximated by the crude birth rate surrounding the cohort’s birth. Effects have been observed on young men’s earnings and unemployment rates, college enrolment rates, marriage and divorce, fertility, crime, and suicide rates. These effects have been found to be asymmetrical about the peak of a baby boom, and the original hypothesis has been extended to suggest a wide range of effects on the economy as a whole, from GDP growth rate, through interest rates and stock market performance, to measures of productivity.
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Macunovich, D.J., Easterlin, R.A. (2018). Easterlin Hypothesis. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_531
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_531
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