Abstract: In recent years, aging population and environmental pollution have become crucial problems globally. The logical relationship among aging, economic growth and pollution is critical for formulating environmental economic policy. Based on the panel data of 106 countries from 1992 to 2010, the relationship between aging and pollution as well as the influence path are examined from the theoretical and empirical perspectives. The results of the influence of aging on pollution are listed as follows. Theoretically, the impact is realized through production effect and living effect. The former refers to the pollutant reduction by present consumption and the latter means the pollutant increasing by next period investment. Empirically, the impact of aging on pollution is significant in the living effect, but insignificant in production effect. From group regression data of the impact on pollution by aging, the production effect is significant in low-income countries, but living effect is significant in middle-income and high-income countries. It means that developing countries during the process from low to high income such as China are about to meet the turning point of U relationship between aging and pollution. When the aging population is above 13.3%, it can effectively increase pollution. Thus, if we cannot realize the continuous transformation from the old to new driving force, nor the transformation and upgrading of the economic structure, we will confront with the problems of middle income trap, pollution and aging all together. We should promote the green development with high quality, and strive for a larger time span to postpone the turning point of U relationship.

Key words: aging population, environmental pollution, OLG model, mediating effect model