Effects of ageing/declining populations on national-level indices of socio-economic performance

Corey J. A. Bradshaw
Global Ecology, Flinders University, Australia
e-mail

Shana M. McDermott
Department of Economics, University of Missouri, USA
e-mail

Accompanies pre-print:
Bradshaw, CJA, SM McDermott. No evidence ageing or declining populations compromise socio-economic performance of countries. arχiv doi:10.48550/arXiv.2508.16872

Scripts

• ageingSEperformanceGH.R: R code for all analyses

Data

• continent.country2.csv: country names, 3-character ISO country codes, continental region, other regionalisation
• CPIA23wb.csv: CPIA transparency, accountability, and corruption in the public sector rating (source: World Bank)
• cpi.csv: corruption perception index (source: Transparency International)
• cpits.csv: corruption perception index time series (source: Transparency International)
• DCWI.csv: per-capita domestic comprehensive wealth index by country (source: World Bank)
• freedom.csv: freedom score time series (source: Freedom House)
• freedom2025.csv: freedom score 2025 (source: Freedom House)
• gdppcPPP.csv: per-capita gross domestic product adjusted for purchasing power parity by country (source: World Bank)
• giniMn.csv: annual time series of Gini coefficient (income equality) (source: World Bank)
• gcf.csv: gross captial formation (source: World Bank)
• gor.csv: grants and other revenue (source: World Bank)
• HDI.csv: Human Development Index (source: United Nations Development Programme)
• HDIPP.csv: planetary pressure-adjusted Human Development Index (source: United Nations Development Programme)
• HDIPPtimeseries.csv: planetary pressure-adjusted Human Development Index time series (source: United Nations Development Programme)
• healthyLE.csv: healthy life expectancy at birth (years) (source: World Health Organization)
• mva.csv: value-added manufacturing (source: World Bank)
• par.csv: patent applications (source: World Bank)
• polspectrum.csv: political spectrum (Global Parliament Index 2025) (source: Arden Strategies)
• pwt.csv: human capital index, capital services, capital stock, output-side real GDP at current PPP, capital services levels at current PPPs (source: Penn World Table, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, Faculty of Economics and Business)
• popXage.csv: population size by country, year (1950-2021), and yearly age class (0-100+) (source: United Nations Population Division)
• rde.csv: gross expenditure on research and development (source: World Bank)
• savings.csv: gross savings (source: World Bank)
• WB_ASPD.csv.zip: total factor productivity (zipped) (source: World Bank)
• WBASPDLPXR.csv: labour productivity (source: World Bank)
• WBWDI-SIPOV_GINI.csv: Gini coefficient (income equality) (source: World Bank)
• wellbeingrank.csv: composite wellbeing rank by country (source: Blanchflower & Bryson 2024)

Required R libraries

boot, car, dismo, gbm, ggplot2, ggpubr, ggrepel, ggtext, lmtest, nlme, sandwich, usdm