Emerging effects of worldwide demographic changes
Richard Bard
University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center
1
Institute for International Business and
Global Executive Forum
Center for International Business Education & Research
Winter 2004-2005
Richard Bard is chairman and CEO of Bard Capital, LLC, a private investment company that has been
involved in the acquisition and operation of several private and publicly traded businesses over the last 25
years. He is also chairman and CEO of International Surface Preparation Corporation, a privately owned
company which is the leading global provider of surface preparation solutions and equipment to the
automotive, aerospace and foundry industries. He has an MBA in finance from Bernard M. Baruch
College at the City University of New York and a BS in civil engineering from The Pennsylvania State
University. Bard currently serves as Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
Global demographic changes have the power to reshape the world as we know it, said Richard Bard in
his address to the Global Executive Forum. The accelerating changes include “a shifting of the world’s
wealth, an aging of the industrial nations and an emerging middle class in developing nations,” said Bard.
“All these things will impact the world’s economy and perhaps our lives.”
Bard referenced an economic symposium sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City which
found that “as people in the industrial nations get older, they get healthier and live longer. Providing the
necessary social programs translate into real costs and a real burden to governments.”
At the other end of the spectrum, fertility rates are declining and the gap between those retired from the
workforce and those still enjoying a productive working life is getting wider. So the dependency ratio of
the old to the young is rising.
“The reason the US boomed and the reason Japan boomed at one time is because coming in behind us
were all these young people