Abstract
The relationship between population growth and economic growth is controversial. This article draws on historical data to chart the links between population growth, growth in per capita output, and overall economic growth over the past 200 years. Low population growth in high-income countries is likely to create social and economic problems while high population growth in low-income countries may slow their development. International migration could help to adjust these imbalances but is opposed by many. Drawing on economic analyses of inequality, it appears that lower population growth and limited migration may contribute to increased national and global economic inequality.
Highlights
The relationship between population growth and growth of economic output has been studied extensively (Heady & Hodge, 2009)
The correlation is quite strong in Germany and Japan but there is no apparent correlation in Belgium and Spain. These results suggest that per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is not a perfect proxy for multifactor productivity (MFP) growth in these countries in recent years
Most of the work reviewed in this article supports the idea that population growth is an important factor in overall economic growth and may even contribute to increased growth in per capita output in some cases
Summary
The relationship between population growth and growth of economic output has been studied extensively (Heady & Hodge, 2009). Others argue that population growth has been and will continue to be problematic as more people inevitably use more of the finite resources available on earth, thereby reducing long-term potential growth (Linden, 2017). Population growth affects many phenomena such as the age structure of a country’s population, international migration, economic inequality, and the size of a country’s work force. These factors both affect and are affected by overall economic growth. The purpose of this article is to use long-term historical data and a review of both theoretical and empirical work on the relationship among growth of population, total output and per capita output to assess the implications of their evolution for economic inequality, international migration policies, and general economic growth
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