About the Book
The effect of demography on economic performance has been the subject of intense debate in economics for nearly two centuries. In recent years opinion has swung between the Malthusian views of Coale and Hoover, and the cornucopian views of Julian Simon. Unfortunately, until recently, data were too weak and analytical models too limited to provide clear insights into the relationship. As a result economists as a group have not been clear or conclusive.
This volume, based on a collection of papers that heavily rely on data from the 1980s and 1990s and on new analytical approaches, sheds important new light on demographic-economic relationships, and it provides clearer policy conclusions than any recent work on the subject. In particular, evidence from developing countries throughout the world shows a much clearer pattern in recent decades than was evident earlier: countries with higher rates of population growth have tended to see less economic growth. An analysis of the role of demography in the "Asian economic miracle" strongly suggests that changes in age structures resulting from declining fertility create a one-time "demographic gift" or window of opportunity, when the working age population has relatively few dependants, of either young or old age, to support. Countries which recognize and seize on this opportunity can, as the Asian tigers did, realize healthy bursts in economic output. But such results are by no means assured: only for countries with otherwise sound economic policies will the window of opportunity yield such dramatic results. Finally, several of the studies demonstrate the likelihood of a causal relationship between high fertility and poverty. While the direction of causality is not always clear and very likely is reciprocal (poverty contributes to high fertility and high fertility reinforces poverty), the studies support the view that lower fertility at the country level helps create a path out of poverty for many families.
Population Matters represents an important further step in our understanding of the contribution of population change to economic performance. As such, it will be a useful volume for policymakers both in developing countries and in international development agencies.
Table of Contents:
I. Setting the Stage
1: Nancy Birdsall and Steven W. Sinding: How and Why Population Matters: New Findings, New Issues
2: Allen C. Kelley: The Population Debate in Historical Perspective: Revisionism Revised
3: John Bongaarts: Dependency Burdens in the Developing World
II. Population Change and the Economy
4: Allen C. Kelley and Robert M. Schmidt: Economic and Demographic Change: A Synthesis of Models, Findings, and Perspectives
5: Jeffrey G. Williamson: Demographic Change, Economic Growth and Inequality
6: Ronald D. Lee, Andrew Mason, and Tim Miller: Saving, Wealth, and Population
7: David Bloom and David Canning: Cumulative Causality, Economic Growth and the Demographic Transition
III. Fertility, Poverty and the Family
8: Tom Merrick: Population and Poverty in Households: A Review of Reviews
9: Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton: Demographic Transition and Poverty: Effects Via Economic Growth, Distribution, and Conversion
10: Ricardo Hausmann and Miguel Székely: Inequality and the Family in Latin America
11: Ricardo Paes de Barros, Sergio Firpo, Roberta Guedes Barreto, and Phillippe George Pereira Leite: Demographic Changes and Poverty in Brazil
IV. Population, Agriculture and Natural Resources
12: John Pender: Rural Population Growth, Agricultural Change and Natural Resource Management in Developing Countries: A Review of Hypotheses and Some Evidence from Honduras
V. Some Economics of Population Policy
13: Jere R. Behrman: Why Micro Matters
14: Nancy Birdsall: New Findings in Economics and Demography: Implications for Policies to Reduce Poverty
About the Author :
Nancy Birdsall is President of the Center for Global Development and Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she directs the economic reform project. She was the Executive Vice President of the Inter-American Development Bank from 1993 until September 1998. She is the author of numerous publications on economic development issues. Her most recent work is on the causes and effects of inequality in a globalizing world. Allen C.
Kelley is James B. Duke Professor of Economics, Duke University. Steven W. Sinding is Director-General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, headquartered in London. He directs a global
federation of 147 affiliates operating programmes in 180 countries, and six regional offices around the world. Prior to joing IPPF, Dr Sinding was Professor of Population and Family Health at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, and Adjunct Professor of Public Policy in Columbia's School for International and Public Affairs.
Review :
`Review from previous edition Economists notoriously disagree about the economic impact of rapid population growth in poor countries. Here's a new round of serious analysis with a healthy focus not only on the old question of how population change affects growth, but on the more fundamental question -- of how population change affects people's welfare.'
Lawrence Summers, former US Treasury Secretary and President, Harvard University
`Many university courses or textbooks on economic development have very little to say about the role of population. They discuss the progress of growth in per capita income, but have very much more to say about the income than the capita. At the same time, for those who have taken an interest, population issues have been highly controversial, with little in the way of conclusive results. Population Matters puts things right. It comes to new and clear
conclusions, and establishes what its title implies: those interested in economic development ignore population at the peril of missing a key factor. More than that, it gives researchers, teachers, and
practitioners a place to go. The book will for a long time be a point of reference, providing a rich and subtle discussion of a broad range of critical questions; it reflects the state of the art in the subject matter it covers.'
Professor Robert Cassen, London School of Economics
`At the start of the new millennium, nearly five billion people live in the less developed regions of the globe -- in countries where material poverty is still pervasive. If birth rates in these regions had remained as they were fifty years ago, that number would be higher by some two billion. This is the enormous demographic effect of the fertility transition that has taken place. Anyone who wants to understand the impact of that transition on economic
growth and poverty should read this book.'
Paul Demeny, The Population Council
`Provides a very valuable discussion, with detailed references, of the knotty methodological issues inherent in the demography-development debate. . . . Anyone concerned with how population change affects the development prospects of poor countries will profit from reading these essays.'
Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director, The Earth Institute, Columbia University
`This book is one of the most important contributions in the past few years to the debate about the macro consequences of population change.'
Journal of Peace Research
