Is There an Optimal Growth Rate for Population?

This contribution discusses the existence and properties of population growth rates which are optimal in the sense of (1) the number of children and retirees which the average active person has to support, i.e. the overall demographic dependency rate is minimized, (2) the economic dependency rate, i.e. the relative share of per-capita income which the average active person has to spend in order to support children and retirees is minimized and (3) net per-capita consumption, i.e. per-capita income less dependency burden of the average active person is maximized. The corresponding optimal population growth rates are denoted by n*, n**, and n*** respectively.