The level, as well as the structure of private consumption, is influenced by the age structure of the population. This is shown for Austria in the first part of the paper. Age-specific saving rates and consumption patterns on national and regional levels are identified through an analysis of household data of the Austrian consumer budget survey. In a second step, the gained data is used to simulate the future development of the private saving rate and consumption structure in Austria, based on the population projections up to 2050. According to the simulation results, an increase in the private saving rate is to be expected on a national, as well as on a regional level, due to the changing shares of age groups. Furthermore, consumption goods and services in the field of transport will lose significance in favour of expenditures for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, food and non-alcoholic beverages, as well as health products and services.

This paper consolidates two previously disconnected literatures. It integrates R&D-based innovations into a unified growth framework with micro-founded fertility and schooling behavior. The theory suggests a refined view on the human factor in productivity growth. It helps to explain the historical emergence of R&D-based growth and the subsequent emergence of mass education and the demographic transition. The model predicts that the erstwhile positive correlation between population growth and innovative activity turns negative during economic development. This “population-productivity reversal” explains why innovative modern economies are usually characterized by low or negative population growth. Because innovations in modern economies are based on the education of the workforce, the medium-run prospects for future economic growth—when fertility is going to be below replacement level in virtually all developed countries—are better than suggested by conventional R&D-based growth theories.

Dollar prices for industrial raw materials have increased along a wide front, and oil prices are almost as high as they were before the Iraq war. Due to the weak dollar, however, consumers in the euro area have been relatively unaffected so far. Demand for raw materials will remain strong. Must we brace ourselves for a further sharp increase in commodity prices?