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Endogenous Fertility, Mortality and Economic Growth: Can a Malthusian Framework Account for the Conflicting Historical Trends in Population?

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Isaac Ehrlich
Jinyoung Kim

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Abstract

The 19th century economist, Thomas Robert Malthus, hypothesized that the long-run supply of labor is completely elastic at a fixed wage-income level because population growth tends to outstrip real output growth. Dynamic equilibrium with constant income and population is achieved through equilibrating adjustments in "positive checks" (mortality, starvation) and "preventive checks" (marriage, fertility). Developing economies since the Industrial Revolution, and more recently especially Asian economies, have experienced steady income growth accompanied by sharply falling fertility and mortality rates. We develop a dynamic model of endogenous fertility, longevity, and human capital formation within a Malthusian framework that allows for diminishing returns to labor but also for the role of human capital as an engine of growth. Our model accounts for economic stagnation with high fertility and mortality and constant population and income, as predicted by Malthus, but also for takeoffs to a growth regime and a demographic transition toward low fertility and mortality rates, and a persistent growth in per-capita income.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 11590.

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Date of creation: Sep 2005
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11590

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
O1 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Ehrlich, Isaac & Lui, Francis, 1997. "The problem of population and growth: A review of the literature from Malthus to contemporary models of endogenous population and endogenous growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 205-242, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, 2002. "Does the Mortality Decline Promote Economic Growth?," Macroeconomics 0212008, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem & Ryder, Harl E. & Weil, David N., 2000. "Mortality decline, human capital investment, and economic growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 1-23, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Tamura, Robert, 2002. "Human capital and the switch from agriculture to industry," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 207-242, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Matthias Doepke, 2004. "Accounting for Fertility Decline During the Transition to Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 347-383, 09. [Downloadable!]
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  1. Holger Strulik & Jacob Weisdorf, 2008. "Birth, Death, and Development: A Simple Unified Growth Theory," Discussion Papers 08-32, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Rangan Gupta & Emmanuel Ziramba, 2008. "Optimal Public Policy with Endogenous Mortality," Working Papers 200829, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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