Do the middle aged pollute the most? Research paper.

CO2 increases with the share of 35-49 year old citizens.  Perhaps not surprising.  They work more, drive more and consume more than other age groups.  Policy prescription? Sensitive to different age ranges?  What happens if OECD only? Is this finding just a reflection of the typical industrial structure of countries with this age profile? Conclusion - I need to read the paper properly.

"An Estimate of the AgeDistribution's Effect on Carbon Dioxide Emissions"  [PDF]

Economic Inquiry, Vol. 52, Issue 2, pp. 914-929, 2014

STEVEN LUGAUER, University of Notre Dame

RICHARD A. JENSEN, University of Notre Dame - Department of Economics, University of Notre Dame - Department of Economics and Econometrics

CLAYTON SADLER, University of Notre Dame - Department of Economics

We estimate the age distribution's impact on carbon dioxide emissions from 1990 to 2006 by exploiting demographic variation in a panel of 46 countries. To eliminate potential bias from endogeneity or omitted variables, we instrument for the age distribution in a country's current population with lagged birth rates, and the regressions control for total population, total output, and country and year fixed effects. Carbon dioxide emissions increase with the share of the population aged 35 to 49 years, and this result is statistically significant and quantitatively large.