The End of Economic Growth? Unintended Consequences of a Declining Population [pdf]
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Re: The End of Economic Growth? Unintended Consequences of a Declining Population [pdf]
#2The book Empty Planet is a very interesting read that looks around the world at various countries where population is declining such as Korea and Japan and European countries where this is about to happen as well. The book is mentioned in the paper.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37585564-empty-planet
This paper on the economic consequences is also interesting. It popped up on various economics blogs when it came out.
Re: The End of Economic Growth? Unintended Consequences of a Declining Population [pdf]
#3Isn't the underlying assumption that economic growth is tied to an ever growing population being tested in the age of automation?
Re: The End of Economic Growth? Unintended Consequences of a Declining Population [pdf]
#4> It is a distinct possibility — highlighted in the recent book, Empty Planet — that global population will decline rather than stabilize in the long run. What happens to economic growth when
population growth turns negative?
IMO, this is a pretty silly idea.
The fundamental problem with this theory is that there are sub-populations that have been able to maintain high fertility despite the decline in broader society.
For example, the number of Amish doubles every 20 years. Today, there are 1/3 of a million Amish. At the current rate, it'll only be 200 years until there are more than 300 million Amish in the US.
No idea if that will actually happen, but if everyone else dies off, there no reason they wouldn't just take over.
Re: The End of Economic Growth? Unintended Consequences of a Declining Population [pdf]
#5Isn't the underlying assumption that economic growth is tied to an ever growing population being tested in the age of automation?
Sure, but one would then assume that in the age of automation, our productivity rates would be skyrocketing. It seems that that hasn't been the trend after the great recession [1]. Not to say that it couldn't change, but seems to me like there's some kind of narrative violation going on where "thought leaders" preach about automation, yet we can't see it in the statistics.
Edit: Although, there's also a change that we're just measuring productivity incorrectly right now, and not correctly taking into account the way the online economy works.
[1]: https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-6/below-trend-the-us-pro...
Re: The End of Economic Growth? Unintended Consequences of a Declining Population [pdf]
#6Is the idea that technological improvements are tied to _increasing_ population somehow? What's the mechanism there?
Being only slightly facetious, but if everyone had no more than one child, that leaves a lot more time in which to invent stuff. And true, over time there will be fewer people doing the inventing, but a world with ~a billion people in it still managed to invent flight, and one with billions fewer than today still got to the Moon.
Re: The End of Economic Growth? Unintended Consequences of a Declining Population [pdf]
#7Isn't the underlying assumption that economic growth is tied to an ever growing population being tested in the age of automation?
It’s being tested everywhere. Even some of our most basic social programs such as social security assume a steady population growth. Let alone things like basic income.
Re: The End of Economic Growth? Unintended Consequences of a Declining Population [pdf]
#8> It is a distinct possibility — highlighted in the recent book, Empty Planet — that global population will decline rather than stabilize in the long run. What happens to economic growth when population growth turns negative? IMO, this is a pretty silly idea. The fundamental problem with this theory is that there are sub-populations that have been able to maintain high fertility despite the decline in broader society…
It also implicitly assumes that economic growth is the only way for a society to grow.
Re: The End of Economic Growth? Unintended Consequences of a Declining Population [pdf]
#9Is the idea that technological improvements are tied to _increasing_ population somehow? What's the mechanism there? Being only slightly facetious, but if everyone had no more than one child, that leaves a lot more time in which to invent stuff. And true, over time there will be fewer people doing the inventing, but a world with ~a billion people in it still managed to invent flight, and one with billions fewer than…
If it was true India and China would've been much more successful ( i know China is now due to the miracle they had) a lot earlier
Re: The End of Economic Growth? Unintended Consequences of a Declining Population [pdf]
#10Isn't the underlying assumption that economic growth is tied to an ever growing population being tested in the age of automation?
Sure, but one would then assume that in the age of automation, our productivity rates would be skyrocketing. It seems that that hasn't been the trend after the great recession [1]. Not to say that it couldn't change, but seems to me like there's some kind of narrative violation going on where "thought leaders" preach about automation, yet we can't see it in the statistics. Edit: Although, there's also a change that w…
Productivity by automation is constrained by the available energy, also economic growth could already be limited by the lack of availale energy.
https://energyeconomicgrowth.org/sites/eeg.opml.co.uk/files/...