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Malthusian pressures: Empirical evidence from a frontier economy

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  • Geloso, Vincent
  • Kufenko, Vadim

Abstract

In this paper we study Malthusian pressures in a frontier economy. Using the empirical data on the real prices and demographic variables from 1688 to 1860 for Quebec and Montreal, we test for the existence of Malthusian pressures. Bearing in mind the particularities of frontier economies and the development of the Canadian economy, we conduct cointegration tests and VARs in order to identify positive and preventive checks. The cointegration test reveals absence of long-run equilibrium relationship between real wheat prices, birth and death rates. Using the Bai-Perron test we find a structural break in 1767 and divide the sample in pre- and post-conquest periods. We find that the positive checks were operating in the years prior to the conquest but that they faded during the nineteenth century. In the short-run, we find that wheat prices Granger-cause fluctuations in death rates in the pre-conquest period.

Suggested Citation

  • Geloso, Vincent & Kufenko, Vadim, 2015. "Malthusian pressures: Empirical evidence from a frontier economy," Violette Reihe: Schriftenreihe des Promotionsschwerpunkts "Globalisierung und Beschäftigung" 42/2015, University of Hohenheim, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Evangelisches Studienwerk.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:hohpro:422015
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    Cited by:

    1. Vincent Geloso & Mathieu Bédard, 2018. "Was Economic Growth Likely in Lower Canada?," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 33(Fall 2018), pages 1-23.
    2. Kufenko, Vadim & Khaustova, Ekaterina & Geloso, Vincent, 2022. "Escape underway: Malthusian pressures in late imperial Moscow," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    3. Geloso, Vincent & Kufenko, Vadim & Villeneuve, Remy, 2016. "Living standards in Lower Canada, 1831," Violette Reihe: Schriftenreihe des Promotionsschwerpunkts "Globalisierung und Beschäftigung" 50/2016, University of Hohenheim, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Evangelisches Studienwerk.
    4. Vincent Geloso, 2023. "Unenlightened peasants? Farming techniques among French-Canadians, circa 1851," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 17(2), pages 341-363, May.
    5. Vincent Geloso, 2019. "A price index for Canada, 1688 to 1850," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(2), pages 526-560, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Malthusian economy; preventive check; positive check; Canadian history; empirical analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • N11 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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