With age comes immaturity: Do countries with older populations issue shorter maturity debt?

Recent work has found that countries with older populations face steeper yield curves and issue shorter maturity debt than do younger countries. We reexamine these findings using a new database of public debt maturity and yields for OECD countries. We first show that the behavior of eurozone countri...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Economics letters 2021-12, Vol.209, p.110100, Article 110100
Main Authors: Senel, Gonca, Wright, Mark L.J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aging
Capital markets
Debt
Debt maturity
Developing countries
Eurozone
LDCs
Maturity
Older people
Public debt
Sovereign default
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Recent work has found that countries with older populations face steeper yield curves and issue shorter maturity debt than do younger countries. We reexamine these findings using a new database of public debt maturity and yields for OECD countries. We first show that the behavior of eurozone countries in the pre-euro period drives these results. Next, including more recent data from the post-euro period, we show that the relationship between population age, maturity, and yield curve slopes disappears. This finding is robust to excluding high-credit-risk countries. Last, we show that these patterns reemerge after the European debt crisis, suggesting that eurozone capital markets have resegmented. •Countries with older populations face steeper yield curves and issue shorter maturity debt.•Eurozone countries are the primary driver of these results among OECD countries.•The results weakened as debt markets integrated following adoption of the euro.•The results reemerged after the 2013 eurozone debt crisis.
ISSN:0165-1765
1873-7374
DOI:10.1016/j.econlet.2021.110100