scholarly journals Demographic theory and population ethics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Kolk
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Population Size ◽  
Demographic Change ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
External Shocks ◽  
Population Ethics ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Size Population ◽  
Demographic Theory ◽  
Available Resources

Demographic theory is concerned with how population systems regulate themselves given available resources and external shocks to population size. This chapter provides an overview of demographic theory, focusing specifically on relationships between population size, population growth, and welfare. It then discusses four implications of demographic theory for population ethics. Speaking broadly, these four implications concern (1) the overreliance by some population ethicists on Malthusian assumptions about the average welfare of population declining with increasing population size, (2) the likelihood of certain hypothetical scenarios that feature in thought experiments used in population ethics, (3) the prioritization of extinction risks by population ethicists, and (4) the patterns of intergenerational and intertemporal inequality that population ethicists may anticipate over the long run. The chapter closes with a discussion of demographic theory in relation to historical and future demographic change.

scholarly journals Demographic Theory and Population Ethics – Relationships between Population Size and Population Growth

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Kolk
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Population Size ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Population Ethics ◽  
Working Paper ◽  
Size Population ◽  
Demographic Theory ◽  
A Minor

Demographic theory aims at explaining how population systems regulate themselves given available resources. Population ethics is concerned with demography in the sense that the analytical objects of interest are births, deaths, and populations. However, demographic theory which explores theoretically when, how and why populations grow, based on empirically observed patterns, has up until now played a minor role in population ethics. Similarly, debates about population dynamics among demographers have seldom been concerned with ideas and concepts in population ethics. In this manuscript, I will give a brief outline of how population size, population growth, and welfare mutually affect each other. Theories on the endogeneity between population size, population growth, and welfare will be referred to as demographic theory. I will give a particular focus on how population growth responds with respect to welfare, as welfare, utility, well-being, and happiness are important concepts in population ethics. A key concept in demographic theory is population homeostasis (the dynamics of a system which maintains a population at a steady population size, or growth rate), in particular resource dependent homeostasis. I will also discuss demographic theory in relation to historical and future demographic change. This working paper was later published in Oxford Handbook of Population Ethics, and is available at https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/at5pj/

PUSH, PULL, AND POPULATION SIZE EFFECTS IN STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT: LONG-RUN TRADE-OFFS

2016 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oksana M. Leukhina ◽  
Stephen J. Turnovsky
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Population Size ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Growth Effect ◽  
Specific Productivity ◽  
Structural Development ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Push And Pull

Abstract:The process of structural transformation from the farm to a nonfarm sector is accompanied by technological change in both sectors and massive population growth. We investigate the effects of increasing population size (the population effect) and sector-specific productivity (the push and pull effects), both factor-neutral and factor-biased, in a parsimonious general equilibrium model under general forms of utility and production functions. All three effects may co-exist and interact in important ways. Generalizing the agricultural sector production function to CES is crucial for the population growth effect. Our analysis highlights how the relative importance of the three effects changes as the country develops and production and consumption conditions become more flexible.

Malthus's Vision of the Population Problem in the Essay on Population

1990 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Hollander
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Population Size ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Preventive Check ◽  
Economic Association ◽  
Gary Becker ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Stability

In his Presidential address to the American Economic Association, Gary Becker alludes to Thomas Malthus's “great contribution” (1988, p. 1) in a prologue to a wider exploratory discussion of some of the implications for macroeconomics flowing from recent programs in family economics. The content of the contribution as represented here (p. 2) includes diminishing returns to increases in employment “when land and other capital are fixed;” population growth positively related to the wage, the lower population growth at low wages turning on reduced birth rates (the preventive check) and increased death rates (the positive check); and a long-run equilibrium wage at which population is constant at a level determined by the production function. Becker emphasizes the stability of the equilibrium wage in the face of disturbances. A catastrophic reduction in population size (eg. the Black Death) and consequently a wage increase will be followed by positive population growth which restores both the wage and population size to their respective equilibrium levels. In the event of increases in the amount of usuable land, population size will become permanently higher with the wage ultimately reduced to its original long-run level. Becker represents Malthus as reaching “much more pessimistic conclusions about the long-term economic prospects of the average family” than, for example, Godwin and Condorcet who had maintained that the economic position of mankind will continue to improve over time.

scholarly journals How Do the Population Structure Changes of China Affect Carbon Emissions? An Empirical Study Based on Ridge Regression Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 3319
Author(s):  
Chulin Pan ◽  
Huayi Wang ◽  
Hongpeng Guo ◽  
Hong Pan
Keyword(s):  
Population Structure ◽  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Population Size ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Ridge Regression ◽  
Employment Structure ◽  
Consumption Structure ◽  
Structure Changes ◽  
Size Population ◽  
Ridge Regression Analysis

This study focuses on the impact of population structure changes on carbon emissions in China from 1995 to 2018. This paper constructs the multiple regression model and uses the ridge regression to analyze the relationship between population structure changes and carbon emissions from four aspects: population size, population age structure, population consumption structure, and population employment structure. The results showed that these four variables all had a significant impact on carbon emissions in China. The ridge regression analysis confirmed that the population size, population age structure, and population employment structure promoted the increase in carbon emissions, and their contribution ratios were 3.316%, 2.468%, 1.280%, respectively. However, the influence of population consumption structure (−0.667%) on carbon emissions was negative. The results showed that the population size had the greatest impact on carbon emissions, which was the main driving factor of carbon emissions in China. Chinese population will bring huge pressure on the environment and resources in the future. Therefore, based on the comprehensive analysis, implementing the one-child policy will help slow down China’s population growth, control the number of populations, optimize the population structure, so as to reduce carbon emissions. In terms of employment structure and consumption structure, we should strengthen policy guidance and market incentives, raising people’s low-carbon awareness, optimizing energy-consumption structure, improving energy efficiency, so as to effectively control China’s carbon emissions.

scholarly journals Effects of patents on the transition from stagnation to growth

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angus C. Chu ◽  
Zonglai Kou ◽  
Xilin Wang
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Population Size ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
Growth Model ◽  
Patent Protection ◽  
Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Schumpeterian Growth ◽  
Long Run

Abstract This study provides a growth-theoretic analysis of the effects of intellectual property rights on the take-off of an economy from an era of stagnation to a state of sustained economic growth. We incorporate patent protection into a Schumpeterian growth model in which take-off occurs when the population size crosses an endogenous threshold. We find that strengthening patent protection has contrasting effects on economic growth at different stages of development. Specifically, it leads to an earlier take-off but also reduces economic growth in the long run.

scholarly journals California Futures

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-54
Author(s):  
Dowell Myers
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Baby Boomers ◽  
Demographic Change ◽  
House Prices ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Rapid Population Growth ◽  
Proposition 13 ◽  
Racial Change ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Brighter Future

California needs a new guiding narrative for shared understanding and for directing public decisions about threats and opportunities in the state. Misleading and counterproductive guidance is provided by narratives that are no longer supported by recent trends. Ongoing changes related to two specific guiding narratives are described. In the first, support for Proposition 13 was founded on explosive increases of house prices in the 1970s, along with assumptions of continued migration of newcomers willing to pay higher prices and the higher taxes needed to offset discounts for oldtimers. A second narrative of demographic change reacts negatively to rapid population growth, soaring immigration and racial change. Remarkably, virtually all the premises in these two narratives have been overturned by events. Instead, a different set of urgent problems and opportunities have emerged that require a new guiding vision. In place of exploding house prices, tax assessments have collapsed and we struggle to revive the housing market. Young buyers are asked to pay the highest taxes, but today it is the young not the old who are vulnerable and threatened. While before it was a struggle to keep up with migration from outside California, immigration has declined and today the growth is homegrown. Meanwhile, the aging baby boomers are about to create a crisis of replacement workers, taxpayers and home buyers. Cultivating the new homegrown generation is our paramount need. Today the story of California is completely reversed, yet adherence to the old narratives blocks recognition of the path to a brighter future.

scholarly journals Ethnic Immigration Policy Implementation (1992- 2009)

2013 ◽  
pp. 109-117
Author(s):  
Shugatai Amangul
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Population Size ◽  
International Migration ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Migration Process ◽  
Economic Stability ◽  
Positive Effect

After Kazakhstan declared its independence, it became a large perform­er in the worldwide international migration process. The attraction of social and economic stability (with an increase in the level of liv­ing standard), stable ethno-demographic and population growth, no nationalist struggles as well as positive geopolitical situations, have lead to a huge flow of immigrants to Kazakhstan in the years since independence. In this study, I have suggested that results of the ethnic immigration policy include strengthening the national identity, creating a positive effect on the ethno-demographic outcomes, and increasing the number of the population size over the last nineteen years. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5564/mjia.v0i17.87 Mongolian Journal of International Affairs, No.17 2012: 109-117

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