LEPAS The acronym LEPAS stands for "Long-run Economic Perspectives of an Aging Society." The project, funded by the European Commission as part of the 7th Framework Programme, runs from April 2009 to March 2012. It integrates into modern dynamic macroeconomics a biologically founded process of individual aging understood as the gradual deterioration of the functioning of body and mind. The project is coordinated by Professor Dr Holger Strulik (Economics Department, University of Hannover).

Research

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The LEPAS project aims to deliver a clearer understanding of how aging and mortality affect economic activity. Humans are biological organisms, yet economic analysis of the economy as a whole largely ignores this simple truism. That is, the "economic agents" that appear in models concerning growth in aggregate GDP simply do not age in a biologically meaningful way. The fundamental purpose of the project is to integrate frontier knowledge from the biology of aging into economic models so as to make the economic models "come alive".

Participants

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LEPAS research consortium consists of four European partner institutions:


Advisory board

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LEPAS' work is guided by an external interdisciplinary advisory board, comprising of renowned scientists in the fields of economic growth (Oded Galor, Brown University), biology of senescence (James Carey, UC Davis) and biomedical aging (Beatrix Grubeck-Loebenstein, Austrian Academy of Science) as well as of policymakers (Julius op de Beke and Leire Pajin Iraola.

External sources

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Category Research projects Category European Commission projects Category Seventh Framework Programme projects Category Legal research Category Health research Category Economics research