Just the revised GDP estimates for the last quarter of 2016 and the first quarter of 2017, released by Istat after the closure of our projections exercise, raises the outlook for the growth achieved so far in the current year by about 0.3 percentage points.
This is an acute balance sheet adjustment when the composition of the nation’s population is rapidly tilting toward the old. This is unprecedented in our modern history of economic growth. This ageing population is the result of people’s choices made many years ago when, after the Second World War, birth control became possible and substantial medical improvements were reducing child mortality and increasing longevity.