Population Dynamics with Endogenous Birth and Mortality Rates

Abstract

This chapter integrates the basic model with some well-accepted ideas in the literature of endogenous birth and mortality rates. Modern economies are characterized of fast capital accumulation, widely spread education and fast accumulated human capital, improved physical health, and unprecedented population dynamics (such as aging and declining fertility rates in developed economies). Two obvious trends are occurring in the world: developed countries experience negative population growth (especially minus immigrants), while many developing economies experience positive population growth. In the globalizing world, Malthus is still valid. The chapter first uses the Haavelmo’s population model to demonstrate chaos in a simple model. It also shows how to explain dynamic phenomena with the model developed late on. The chapter integrates the basic model, the Haavelmo model, and the Oniki–Uzawa model to show trade, growth and population change in the global economy. Finally, I integrate the model in the previous section and the growth with human capital in Chap. 4 to show how endogenous human capital interacts with wealth accumulation and population growth.