What sparked humanity's leap from stagnation to prosperity? What lies at the core of inequality among nations? Unified Growth Theory explores the evolution of societies over the entire course of human history. It uncovers the universal wheels of change that have governed the journey of humanity,...

What sparked humanity’s leap from stagnation to prosperity? What lies at the core of inequality among nations? Unified Growth Theory explores the evolution of societies over the entire course of human history. It uncovers the universal wheels of change that have governed the journey of...

For most of human history, until the fertility transition, technological progress translated into larger populations, preventing sustained improvements in living standards. We argue that migration offered an escape valve from these Malthusian dynamics after the European discovery and...

This article studies socially optimal allocations, from the point of view of a benevolent social planner, in environments characterized by fixed resources, endogenous fertility, and full information. Individuals in our environment are fully rational and altruistic toward their descendants. Our...

This paper studies the relationship between population size and the rate of time preference (RTP) in pre-capitalist subsistence agricultural communities. The RTP is reflected in the community´s propensity to invest in and maintain new arable land that may be considered as an inherent...

1. Introduction -- 2. The Individual -- 3. The State -- 4. Population -- 5. The Enquirer -- 6. The Continuing Debate -- 7. Malthus’ Essay -- 8. Godwin’s Thoughts -- 9. Of Population -- 10. The Westminster Review. 11. Conclusion.

A recent endogenous growth literature has focused on the transition from a Malthusian world where real wages were linked to factor endowments, to one where modern growth has broken that link. In this paper we present evidence on another, related phenomenon: the dramatic reversal in...

This paper sketches a theory of the secular decline in morbidity and mortality that takes account of changes in human physiology since 1700. The synergism between technological and physiological improvements has produced a form of human evolution, much more rapid than natural selection, which is...

This paper argues that the secular decline in mortality, which began during the eighteenth century, is still in progress and will probably continue for another century or more. The evolutionary perspective presented in this paper focuses not only on the environment, which from the standpoint of...

This paper develops a unified model of growth, population, and technological progress that is consistent with long-term historical evidence. The economy endogenously evolves through three phases. In the Malthusian regime, population growth is positively related to the level of income per capita....

The class of "rank-additive" (RA) axiologies includes rank-weighted utilitarian, generalized utilitarian, and rank-discounted generalized utilitarian rules; it is a flexible framework for population ethics. This paper axiomatically characterizes RA axiologies and studies their properties in two...

"This radical new reading of the eighteenth-century British theorist Thomas Robert Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population exposes his narrow understanding of food production by examining subsistence activities such as hunting, herding, and gardening. In broadening our conception of human...

"The defeat of the British government by American revolutionaries in 1776 and the role of the laboring classes in overthrowing the French monarchy in 1789 inspired confidence among working people and fear among the elites, posing the need for an ideological counterattack. The Essay on Population...

In this paper we investigate the impact of technological change on inequalityin the presence of a landed elite using a standard unified growth model. We measure inequality by the ratio between land rent and wages and show that, before the onset of the fertility transition, technological progress...

Our political and legal institutions have considerable experience managing small scale biological processes, and less experience with global scale geologic and meteorological processes. Importantly, biological systems tend to stasis. Geological systems often do not. The human population is now...

Employing annual time series data on total population in Indonesia from 1960 to 2017, we model and forecast total population over the next 3 decades using the Box–Jenkins ARIMA technique. Diagnostic tests such as the ADF tests show that Indonesia annual total population is neither I (0) nor I...

The Black Death killed 40% of Europe's population between 1347-1352, making it one of the largest shocks in the history of mankind. Despite its historical importance, little is known about its spatial effects and the effects of pandemics more generally. Using a novel dataset that provides...

Paul Samuelson made a series of important contributions to population theory for humans and other species, evolutionary theory, and the theory of age structured life cycles in economic equilibrium and growth. The work is highly abstract but much of it was intended to illuminate issues of...

To reconsider the Malthusian predictions of natural limits to economic development, the paper develops a multi-sector growth model with exhaustible resource extraction, investments in physical and knowledge capital, climate change, and endogenous fertility. Economic growth is driven by...

In spite of two centuries of extensive debate, a consistent framework of the classical theory of population on which economists can universally agree has not been established. This means that either the theory lacks consistency or it has been misunderstood in important ways. This paper attempts...

Paul Samuelson made a series of important contributions to population theory for humans and other species, evolutionary theory, and the theory of age structured life cycles in economic equilibrium and growth. The work is highly abstract but much of it was intended to illuminate issues of...

"The views of Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) on population, first published in his Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798, continue to be hotly debated, either acclaimed or opposed, as do his views on microeconomics. There is also a widely held view that his macroeconomics lacks coherence...

Analytical setting -- Structured population models on state space R -- Structured population models on proper spaces -- Numerical methods for structured population models -- Recent developments and future perspectives.

"Does the environment pose limits to human population size and wellbeing? Or does human intelligence and resourcefulness ensure that environmental limits will be expanded and respected? Is a growing population a (or even the) key driver of resource depletion and environmental degradation? How...