Author : Jisoo Kang (Sogang Univ.)

            Janghee Cho (Jeju National Univ.)

This study shows the effects of the old dependency ratio on the age structure and performance of establishments in a region. Using county-level (si-gun-gu in Korea) data constructed from the 2015 Economic Census and 2015 Population and Housing Census, we find a county with higher old dependency ratio has a higher fraction of old establishments and lower number of jobs and sales per worker. The robustness checks using an alternative age variable and subsample produce qualitatively similar results. The result suggests that the local ageing population is negatively related to the dynamics of the local economy as well as its scale and performance.