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On the Treatment of Population Ageing in Economic Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2008

William A. Jackson
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, York, YOI 5DD, U.K.

Abstract

Population ageing is often thought to have adverse economic consequences, and economics therefore has a responsibility for contributing to an understanding of ageing. This paper discusses the treatment of population ageing in economic theory and argues that mainstream economics is too narrow and restrictive to provide an adequate representation of ageing. An alternative to mainstream economic theory is a more pluralistic view of ageing, drawing from non-neo-classical economic theory and from the theorising of the other social sciences.

Type
Forum
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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