Abstract:
Two arguments are often made concerning the adverse impacts of
rapid population growth on the rate of economic development.' The
first is Malthusian in origin: a relatively "fixed" (or slow growing)
resource (land, according to Malthus, or other renewable and nonrenewable
resources, according to neo-Malthusians) coupled with
rapid population growth causes a reduction in output per worker. The
second is neoclassical in origin: rapid population growth leads to increasing
scarcity of "productive capital" per worker and thereby to
declining worker productivity. Overall the Malthusian argument has
dominated the literature, but in the postwar period the neoclassical
perspective has gained substantial attention. This is due to the prominent
role economists have attributed to capital formation in economic
growth as well as to the emergence of several important pieces of
research, the most influential of which was the pioneering work of
Ansley J. Coale and Edgar M. Hoover, who considered three adverse
impacts of population growth on savings and capital formation........
