A Compact Macromodel of Pre-Industrial Population Growth
摘要:
A compact macromodel of pre-industrial population growth between the Middle Ages and the demographic revolution is proposed. The authors attempt to capture two salient features of the demographic history of this epoch--that is, that population growth was on average slow and cyclical, but that there were phases during which growth was relatively fast. Their model synthesizes Malthusian notions with endogenous technical progress. The latter continually shifts the constraints on population growth. The simulation based on the model is able to reproduce well the estimated size of the European population in this half of the millennium.