ECO 2117 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Infant Mortality, Demographic Transition, Diminishing Returns

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Economics
• Course: ECO 2117
• Professor: Octavian Strimbu

Document Summary

Components of population growth: natural increases in fertility and mortality birth rate (per 1000) Under 5 child mortality rates (per 1000) age structure and dependency burdens: net international migration. But highe(cid:396) le(cid:448)els of (cid:271)oth i(cid:374) ldc(cid:859)s. But earlier & stronger reductions in mortality rates leading to increased population growth. Hidden momentum of population growth: high birth rates cannot be altered overnight. Stage i: high birthrates and death rates. Stage ii: continued high birthrates, declining death rates. Stage iii: falling birthrates and death rates, eventually stabilizing. The malthusian population trap: the idea that (cid:396)isi(cid:374)g populatio(cid:374) a(cid:374)d diminishing returns to fixed factors result in a low levels of living (population trap) Criticisms of the malthusian model: impact of technological progress, currently no positive correlation between population growth and levels of per capita income in the data, microeconomics of family size; individual and not aggregate variables. Microeconomic household theory of fertility: the demand for children in developing countries.