TY  - JOUR
AU  - Ehrlich,Isaac
AU  - Kim,Jinyoung
TI  - Endogenous Fertility, Mortality and Economic Growth: Can a Malthusian Framework Account for the Conflicting Historical Trends in Population?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11590
PY  - 2005
Y2  - September 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11590
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11590.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Isaac Ehrlich
415 Fronczak Hall
State University of New York at Buffalo
and Center for Human Capital
Box 601520
Buffalo, NY 14260-1520
Tel: 716/645-2121ext 421
Fax: 716/645- 2127
E-Mail: mgtehrl@buffalo.edu

Jinyoung Kim
Department of Economics
Korea University
5-1, Anam-Dong, Sungbuk-Ku
Seoul, Korea 136-701
Tel: 011-82-2-3290-2202
Fax: 011-82-2-3290-2202
E-Mail: jinykim@korea.ac.kr
AB  - The 19th century economist, Thomas Robert Malthus, hypothesized that the long-run supply of labor is completely elastic at a fixed wage-income level because population growth tends to outstrip real output growth. Dynamic equilibrium with constant income and population is achieved through equilibrating adjustments in "positive checks" (mortality, starvation) and "preventive checks" (marriage, fertility). Developing economies since the Industrial Revolution, and more recently especially Asian economies, have experienced steady income growth accompanied by sharply falling fertility and mortality rates. We develop a dynamic model of endogenous fertility, longevity, and human capital formation within a Malthusian framework that allows for diminishing returns to labor but also for the role of human capital as an engine of growth. Our model accounts for economic stagnation with high fertility and mortality and constant population and income, as predicted by Malthus, but also for takeoffs to a growth regime and a demographic transition toward low fertility and mortality rates, and a persistent growth in per-capita income.
ER  -