Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-1-2021

Abstract

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.

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