On the Malthusian Hypothesis and the Dynamics of Population and Income in an Equilibrium Growth Model With Endogenous Fertility

In this paper we analyze two positive issues regarding population and economic growth. The first issue concerns the pessimistic conjecture of Malthus that the existence of a fixed amount of land leads to the eventual decline in per-capita consumption and capital.1) The second issue concerns the observed positive association between population growth and income growth in developed countries (Kuznetz (1966)). To analyze these issues we use a version of the overlapping generations growth framework in which fertility is subject to individual choice.2)