Population Control in Japan: An Economic Theory and Its Application

Abstract

The so-called classical economists (Smith, Malthus, Ricardo, and their successors) embedded an economic theory of population in their general economics of growth and development.' With the utility revolution of the I870's, however, economists turned away from population problems, which passed largely by default into the hands of the rising science of sociology. A revival of interest in the economics of population has accompanied renewed attention to the development problems of the less-developed areas within the last generation and particularly since the end of World War II. Two representative contemporary American economists who have specialized on population problems are Joseph J. Spengler2 and Harvey Liebenstein.3 Part one of the present paper is devoted to an elementary version (largely diagrammatic) of a contemporary economic theory of population growth, with population related as both cause and effect to the level of per capita income. Parts two and three attempt to apply this analysis to Japan during its period of seclusion