American Economic Review Vol. 101 No. 5 2011

Dynamics and Stagnation in the Malthusian Epoch

Quamrul Ashraf¹; Oded Galor²

¹ Department of Economics, Williams College, Schapiro Hall, 24 Hopkins Hall Dr., Williamstown, MA 01267. · ² Department of Economics, Brown University, Robinson Hall, 64 Waterman St., Providence, RI 02912.

Abstract

This paper examines the central hypothesis of the influential Malthusian theory, according to which improvements in the technological environment during the pre-industrial era had generated only temporary gains in income per capita, eventually leading to a larger, but not significantly richer, population. Exploiting exogenous sources of cross-country variations in land productivity and the level of technological advancement the analysis demonstrates that, in accordance with the theory, technological superiority and higher land productivity had significant positive effects on population density but insignificant effects on the standard of living, during the time period 1-1500 CE.

DOI

10.1257/aer.101.5.2003

Volume

101

Issue

5

Pages

2003-2041

Language

en

Sources

openalex bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref

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