Does population aging promote economic growth?

It is one of the controversial issues whether population aging promotes economic growth because it affects public attitudes to population aging and the related policies. In this paper we answer the question in a simple growth model with altruistically linked overlapping generations. We have three analytical results. First, population aging is neutral to economic growth when an adult mortality rate is relatively high and be-quests are operative. Second, if the mortality rate falls beyond a critical level, population aging promotes economic growth because of the over-investment of physical capital in a bequest constrained economy. Third, population aging is more likely to promote economic growth if the altruism is smaller and/or the role of education time in human capital formation is more important. Our result suggests a rationale of a pay-as-you-go public pension that is neutral to the allocation of time to alleviate the bequest constraint