Malthusian trap
Published:
The Malthusian trap, named after political economist Thomas Robert Malthus, suggests that for most of human history, income was largely stagnant because technological advances and discoveries only resulted in more people, rather than improvements in the standard of living. It is only with the onset of the agricultural revolution in Britain and Holland and the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century that the income per person began to dramatically increase in some countries, and they broke out of the trap; it has been shown, however, that the escape from the Malthusian trap can also generate serious political upheavals. It is argued that many countries in tropical Africa still find themselves in the Malthusian trap, which consequencies are transforming new advances into more population.
There is a statement which comes from Malthus also which says that:
“every age and in every state” population increases are limited by the means of subsistence, and that when the means of subsistence increases, population will also increase, and that the population increase will be limited by “misery and vice”.
See also
Material
- http://themisescircle.org/features/from-the-malthusian-trap-to-the-industrial-revolution/
Papers
- Korotayev, A.; et al. (2011). A Trap At The Escape From The Trap? Demographic-Structural Factors of Political Instability in Modern Africa and West Asia. Cliodynamics 2/2: 1-28
- André, C., & Platteau, J. P. (1998). Land relations under unbearable stress: Rwanda caught in the Malthusian trap. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 34(1), 1-47.
- Komlos, J., & Artzrouni, M. (1990). Mathematical investigations of the escape from the Malthusian trap. Mathematical Population Studies, 2(4), 269-287.
- Galor, O., & Weil, D. N. (2000). Population, technology, and growth: From Malthusian stagnation to the demographic transition and beyond. American economic review, 806-828.