Population Consensus

Chapter 4 documents the creation after World War II of a consensus regarding human population growth that briefly united two different scientific perspectives. Natural scientists contended that the world’s human population had already exceeded the Earth’s capacity to support it and that continued growth presented an imminent threat to the natural environment and global peace. This Malthusian perspective was represented by the Population Reference Bureau. Social scientists contended that the world was in a process of demographic transition, whereby modernizing societies were breaking free of the Malthusian trap, though the transition had stalled out in developing countries and needed to be jump-started. This modernizationist perspective was represented by the Population Council. This chapter explains how the Population Reference Bureau and Population Council came together to produce and promote demographic research demonstrating that population growth posed a threat to economic development, thereby putting population control on the U.S. foreign policy agenda.

The African tragedy: the effect of democracy on economic growth

We estimate the effect of democracy on economic growth for the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in comparison with other countries. We find that in contrast to other countries, democracy in Africa benefits neither GDP per capita nor total GDP. We explain the former by changes in the size of the population and the latter by changes in the age structure of the population. Both demographic changes relate to the finding that unlike in other countries, democracy does not reduce child mortality in Africa. The evidence suggests that without improvements in health, democracy puts Africa on a path toward a Malthusian trap.

Fertility versus productivity: a model of growth with evolutionary equilibria

We develop a quantitative model that is consistent with three principal building blocks of Unified Growth Theory: the break-out from economic stagnation, the build-up to the Industrial Revolution, and the onset of the fertility transition. Our analysis suggests that England’s escape from the Malthusian trap was triggered by the demographic catastrophes in the aftermath of the Black Death; household investment in children ultimately raised wages despite an increasing population; and rising human capital, combined with the increasing elasticity of substitution between child quantity and quality, reduced target family size and contributed to the fertility transition.

Population Backfire: Hindsight to Malthusian Catastrophe

The basic tenet of Economics lies in the scarcity principle and unlimited nature of human wants, but allocating a definite amount of resources to satisfy the growing per capita needs in an economy is a difficult task. Things become more complicated when the population pressure generates backfire. The global population has increased to 7.8 billion, and it is essential to ensure sufficient food supply for the growing human population as well as for other species without destroying ecological balance is a serious matter to consider. An evaluation of Malthusian population theories has great importance in this context. This paper intends to analyze the Malthusian theory of population and what happens if population backfire happens and also looks into the intensity of positive checks on population along with the Malthusian trap and its effect on the present as well as the future generation.

DAMPAK SERTA PENGARUH TEKNOLOGI DESAIN INDUSTRI 4.0 DI DUNIA UAS Obie Persada Sitanggang

Pada era sebelum revolusi industri terjadi, dunia berada pada periode dengan perubahan yang sangat lambat dan nyaris tak terlihat dbidang teknologi dan perdagangan. Beberapa perubahan kecil hanya terjadi hanya jumlah produksi per kapita. Perubahan ini hanya berakibat pada meningkatnya populasi penduduk tanpa mengubah standar dan gaya hidup. Ini hampir terjadi seluruh bagian dunia.Standar hidup penduduk didunia ditahun 1700 sulit dibedakan dengan penduduk dunia era babilonia ditahun 2000 SM silam. Fakta ini disebut dengan Malthusian trap, setelah malthus (seorang ahli ekonomi dan politik inggris menganalisa hubungan antara produksi barang (yang seharusnya meningkat seiring dengan meningkatnya jumlah penduduk) dan peningkatan jumlah penduduk (yang terus tumbuh secara geometris).Sejarah revolusi industri adalah sebuah proses ketika, untuk pertama kalinya kehidupan manusia, sebuah negara mematahkan teori Malthusian trap dengan membuat perubahan besar pada produktivitas per kapita. Hal ini menghasilkan kemajuan pesat dibidang teknologi, dan lambat laun mengubah standar hidup penduduk secara signifikan.Kata Kunci : Revolusi Industri, Dunia.

British emigration and the Malthus model

The life of Robert Malthus (1766-1834) spanned the decades in Britain of the rapid transition towards mass international migration. In 1826/7, in his famous explication before the Emigration Committee of Parliament, Malthus argued that the ineffectiveness of emigration as a permanent remedy was a consequence of the ‘vacuum effect’. He proposed a series of apparently inescapable tendencies regarding the causes and consequences of population growth, which were generally ‘dismal’. Malthus’ best-known propositions about emigration related to the utility or otherwise of emigration as a means of relieving the pressure of population on subsistence. There exists a debateable let-out clause for Malthus, located in his doctrine concerning the longer-run. There was less rigidity and less pessimism in Malthusian doctrine than is conventionally understood. The most favoured explanation of the demographic order relates to the escape from ‘the Malthusian trap’.