IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/263680.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Population Growth: A Comparison of Evolutionary Views

Author

Listed:
  • Jackson, William A.

Abstract

Economists are divided about population growth: the pessimism of neo-Malthusians contrasts strongly with the optimism of cornucopians. Despite their differences, both schools of thought reject economic orthodoxy and prefer evolutionary forms of theory. Their interpretations of evolution are different: the neo-Malthusians appeal to the entropy law, whereas the cornucopians emphasise human creativity expressed through markets. This paper argues that both schools are right to adopt an evolutionary outlook, but that they are too restrictive in their conception of evolution. A more complete evolutionary view, which allows properly for social institutions, could give a more balanced account of population growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Jackson, William A., 1995. "Population Growth: A Comparison of Evolutionary Views," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 22(6), pages 3-16.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:263680
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/263680/1/Population%20Growth%20-%20A%20Comparison%20of%20Evolutionary%20Views.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philip Mirowski, 1988. "Energy and Energetics in Economic Theory: A Review Essay," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(3), pages 811-830, September.
    2. Hodgson, Geoffrey M, 1993. "Theories of Economic Evolution: A Preliminary Taxonomy," The Manchester School of Economic & Social Studies, University of Manchester, vol. 61(2), pages 125-143, June.
    3. Boulding, Kenneth E., 1981. "Agricultural Economics In An Evolutionary Perspective," 1981 Annual Meeting, July 26-29, Clemson, South Carolina 279250, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    4. Kenneth E. Boulding, 1981. "Agricultural Economics in an Evolutionary Perspective," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 63(5), pages 788-795.
    5. Foster, John, 1993. "Economics and the Self-Organisation Approach: Alfred Marshall Revisited," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(419), pages 975-991, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ghada Gomaa A. Mohamed & Morrison Handley Schachler, 2017. "Population Growth and Transitional Dynamics of Egypt Theoretical Analysis & Time Series Analysis from 1981 To 2007," International Journal of Asian Social Science, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 7(2), pages 110-118, February.
    2. Boschetti, Fabio & Richert, Claire & Walker, Iain & Price, Jennifer & Dutra, Leo, 2012. "Assessing attitudes and cognitive styles of stakeholders in environmental projects involving computer modelling," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 247(C), pages 98-111.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bruce A. Kirchhoff, 1992. "Entrepreneurship's Contribution to Economics," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 16(2), pages 93-112, January.
    2. Mounir Amdaoud, 2019. "Ressources naturelles, innovation et développement économique : vers une nouvelle approche," CEPN Working Papers 2019-06, Centre d'Economie de l'Université de Paris Nord.
    3. Luis Suarez-Villa, 1988. "Metropolitan Evolution, Sectoral Economic Change, and the City Size Distribution," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 25(1), pages 1-20, February.
    4. Schreiner, Mark, 1995. "Meta-Rules," Economics and Sociology Occasional Papers - ESO Series 28331, Ohio State University, Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics.
    5. Vink, N., 1993. "Entrepreneurs And The Political Economy Of Reform In South African Agriculture," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 32(4), December.
    6. Adam Day, 2022. "States of disorder: An ecosystems approach to state-building in conflict-affected countries," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-154, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Peter Calkins, 2009. "Sufficiency Economy Matrices: Multi-Period Optimization for Local Development Planners," Journal of Economics and Management, College of Business, Feng Chia University, Taiwan, vol. 5(2), pages 305-332, July.
    8. Wible, James R. & Assistant, JHET, 2020. "Why Economics is an Evolutionary, Mathematical Science: How Could Veblen’s View Of Economics Been So Different Than C. S. Peirce’s?," OSF Preprints 5nwsa, Center for Open Science.
    9. Elias L. Khalil, 1997. "Chaos Theory Versus Heisenberg's Uncertainty: Risk, Uncertainty and Economic Theory," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 41(2), pages 27-40, October.
    10. Nima Norouzi, 2022. "Learning Economy: a New Hope to Achieve a Sustainable Economic System," Circular Economy and Sustainability,, Springer.
    11. E. Peterson & Fred Ruppel & Daniel Padberg, 1988. "Assessing agricultural education: Agricultural economics at a crossroads," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 5(4), pages 26-33, September.
    12. Philippe Holstein, 2014. "The sustainability of colonial and postcolonial island economies : the case of Reunion Island [La soutenabilité des économies insulaires coloniales et postcoloniales : le cas de l’île de La Réunion," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-03516478, HAL.
    13. Calkins, Peter H., 1995. "Transition Strategies Towards a New World Order for Five Rural Worlds," 1994 Conference, August 22-29, 1994, Harare, Zimbabwe 183381, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    14. Shabman, Leonard A., 1990. "Environmental Hazards of Farming: Thinking About the Management Challenge," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 11-22, July.
    15. Andrea Maneschi, 2000. "Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and the Filiation of Economic Ideas," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0018, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    16. Geoffrey M. Hodgson & Juha-Antti Lamberg, 2018. "The past and future of evolutionary economics: some reflections based on new bibliometric evidence," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 167-187, June.
    17. Cook, Michael L., 1992. "Agribusiness In A Global Economy: Challenges For An Evolving Profession," Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 24(1), pages 1-6, July.
    18. Armaghan Chizaryfard & Paolo Trucco & Cali Nuur, 2021. "The transformation to a circular economy: framing an evolutionary view," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 475-504, April.
    19. Robert Neild, 2017. "The future of economics: The case for an evolutionary approach," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 28(1), pages 164-172, March.
    20. Richard Arena, 2017. "Schumpeter and Schumpeterians on competition: some policy implications," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 161-186, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    population growth; neo-Malthusians; cornucopians; economic evolution; markets; institutions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;
    • B53 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Austrian
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:263680. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.