Persistence of Malthus or Persistence in Malthus? Mortality, Income, and Marriage in the French Fertility Decline of the Long Nineteenth Century?
Abstract
This paper brings the French case into the current debate on Malthusian dynamics in early modern times. In particular, it studies the long-term evolution of aggregate variables, showing that nineteenth century France was hardly a Malthusian world in a strict sense. Homeostasis was maintained throughout the century and there were signs of a strong positive check, but if there was some sort of preventive check, this was not ‘written in stone’. The results of both cointegrated VAR and short-run analysis grant a reading where departure from the Malthusian world (if there ever was one) is due to a secular change in the relationship between income, marriages, and births. If this interpretation is correct, the fertility decline was instrumental in the sustained decline in mortalit1y during the century.Download Info
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Paper provided by IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University in its series Working Papers with number 363.Length:
Date of creation: 2010
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Handle: RePEc:igi:igierp:363
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Related research
Keywords:This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2010-06-18 (All new papers)
- NEP-HEA-2010-06-18 (Health Economics)
- NEP-HIS-2010-06-18 (Business, Economic & Financial History)
References
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Timothy W. Guinnane, 2010.
"The Historical Fertility Transition: A Guide for Economists,"
Working Papers
990, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
- Timothy W. Guinnane, 2011. "The Historical Fertility Transition: A Guide for Economists," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(3), pages 589-614, September.
- Guinnane, Timothy W., 2010. "The Historical Fertility Transition: A Guide for Economists," Working Papers 84, Yale University, Department of Economics.
- Timothy W. Guinnane & Susana Martinez Rodriguez, 2012.
"For Every Law, a Loophole: Flexibility in the Menu of Spanish Business Forms, 1886-1936,"
Working Papers
1012, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
- Guinnane, Timothy W> & Martinez Rodriguez, Susana, 2012. "For Every Law, a Loophole: Flexibility in the Menu of Spanish Business Forms, 1886-1936," Working Papers 103, Yale University, Department of Economics.
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