Economics Stack Exchange Archive

Are there any long-run macro models with endogenous population growth, other than Malthus?

• posted by: MikeRand on 2011-10-12
• tagged: population
• score: 8

Long-run macro models (e.g Solow) tend to hold population growth constant.

Are there any canonical “very long-run” macro models (other than Malthus) that make population growth endogenous?

Answer 56

• posted by: Zermelo on 2011-10-12
• score: 5

As far as I am aware no major ‘growth theory’ paper in economics tries to explain why population grows in the manner it does, in contrast to Malthus whose aim was to explain the patterns in population growth around the world and over time. That said, some papers do make population growth endogenous in a simple way in order to see the effect of this new feature on steady state level of growth, etc. Examples:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.1086/250076

EDIT: This one seems to take demographics quite seriously:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022053101928546

---

All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.