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On the Treatment of Population Ageing in Economic Theory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 November 2008
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.
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