Negative correlations between inflation and aging are observed across developed nations. To understand such correlations from a politico-economic perspective, we embed the fiscal theory of the price level into an overlapping-generations model, with short-lived governments choosing tax rates and bond issues. Aging is deflationary when caused by an increase in longevity but inflationary when caused by a decline in birth rate. Over the past 40 years, aging has generated non-negligible deflationary pressure in Japan. Our analysis sheds new light on the controversy over the burden of national debt and the commitment effect of strategic debt creation.
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Katagiri et al. (2019) studied this question.
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