Population growth and industrialization

Zhou, Haiwen (2019): Population growth and industrialization. Published in: Economic Inquiry , Vol. 47, No. 2 (April 2009): pp. 249-265.

Abstract

This paper formalizes Rostow’s insight of the role of a leading sector in industrialization in a general equilibrium model. Population growth may lead to a shortage of food and a breakdown of the industrialization process. However, population growth may benefit the manufacturing sector in the adoption of increasing returns to scale technologies. Elasticity of demand for agricultural goods plays an important role in determining whether an improvement of agricultural technology or an increase of population is beneficial to the manufacturing sector. A comparison of China and Britain before the Industrial Revolution shows that R&D is necessary for sustained growth. Achieving industrialization independently requires a combination of a sufficient market size from the demand side and a sufficient supply of technologies from the supply side.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Population growth, increasing returns to scale, industrialization, leading sector, Malthus population cycle
• Subjects: E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E1 - General Aggregative Models > E10 - General; N - Economic History > N1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics ; Industrial Structure ; Growth ; Fluctuations > N10 - General, International, or Comparative; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O14 - Industrialization ; Manufacturing and Service Industries ; Choice of Technology; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q0 - General > Q01 - Sustainable Development

References

REFERENCES

Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson. 2005. Institutions as the Fundamental Cause of Long-run Economic Growth, in Handbook of Economic Growth, edited by Aghion P., and S. Durlauf, Amsterdam: North-Holland.

Ashton, T. S. 1997. The Industrial Revolution 1760-1830. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Chao, Kang. 1986. Man and Land in Chinese History: An Economic Analysis. Stanford University Press.

Engerman, Stanley, and Kenneth Sokoloff. 1997. Factor Endowments, Institutions, and Differential Paths of Growth Among New World Economies: A View from Economic Historians of the United States, in How Latin America fell behind, edited by Haber, S., Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Durand, John. 1960. “The Population Statistics of China, A.D. 2-1953.” Population Studies 13, 209-256.

Goodfriend, Marvin, and John McDermott. 1995. “Early Development.” American Economic Review 85, 116-133.

Hansen, Gary, and Edward Prescott. 2002. “Malthus to Solow.” American Economic Review 92, 1205-1217.

Hicks, John. 1969. A theory of economic history. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Keller, Wolfgang, and Carol Shiue. 2007. Market Integration and Economic Development: A Long-run Comparison. Review of Development Economics 11, 107-123.

Kennedy, Paul. 1989. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York: Vintage Books.

Lin, Yifu. 1995. “The Needham Puzzle: Why the Industrial Revolution did not Originate in China?” Economic Development and Cultural Change 43, 269-292.

List, John, and Haiwen Zhou. 2007. “Internal Increasing Returns to Scale and Economic Growth.” NBER working paper No. 12999.

Lucas, Robert. 1988. “On the Mechanics of Economic Development.” Journal of Monetary Economics 22, 3-42.

Maddison, Angus. 1982. Phases of Capitalist Development. New York: Oxford University Press.

McEvedy, Colin, and Richard Jones. 1978. Atlas of World Population History. New York: Facts on File.

Mokyr, Joel. 1990. The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. New York: Oxford University Press.

Murphy, Kevin, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert Vishny. 1989a. “Income Distribution, Market Size, and Industrialization.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 104, 537-564.

Murphy, Kevin, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert Vishny. 1989b. “Industrialization and Big Push.” Journal of Political Economy 97, 1003-1026.

Needham. Joseph. 1969. The Grand Titration: Science and Society in East and West. London, Allen and Unwin.

North, Douglass, and Robert Thomas. 1973. The Rise of the Western World. Cambridge University Press.

Pomeranz, Kenneth. 2000. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Porter, Michael. 1990. The Comparative Advantage of Nations. New York: Free Press.

Romer, Paul. 1990. “Endogenous Technological Change.” Journal of Political Economy 98, S71-S102.

Rosenberg, Nathan, and Luther Birdzell, Jr. 1986. How the West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation of the Industrial World. New York: Basic Books.

Rostow, Walt. 1960. The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-communist Manifesto. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Shiue, Carol. 2002. “Transport Costs and the Geography of Arbitrage in Eighteen-century China.” American Economic Review 92, 1406-1419.

Shiue, Carol. 2004. Local Granaries and Central Government Disaster Relief: Moral Hazard and Intergovernmental Finance in 18th and 19th Century China. Journal of Economic History 64, 101-125.

Shiue, Carol, and Wolfgang. Keller. 2007. “Markets in China and Europe on the Eve of the Industrial Revolution.” American Economic Review 97, 1189-1216.

Suits, Daniel. 2005. “Agriculture.” in The Structure of American Industry, 11th edition, edited by Walter Adams and James Brock, Upper Saddle Rivers, NJ: Pearson Education.

Tamura, Robert. 1996a. “Regional Economies and Market Integration.” Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 20, 825-845.

Tamura, Robert. 1996b. “From Decay to Growth: A Demographic Transition to Economic Growth.” Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 20, 1237-1262.

Tamura, Robert. 2002. “Human Capital and the Switch from Agriculture to Industry.” Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 27, 207-242.

Tamura, Robert. 2006. “Human Capital and Economic Development.” Journal of Development Economics 79, 26-72.

Zhou, Haiwen. 2004. “The Division of Labor and the Extent of the Market.” Economic Theory 24, 195-209.

Zhou, Haiwen. 2007a. “Increasing Returns, the Choice of Technology, and the Gains from Trade.” Southern Economic Journal 74, 581-600.

Zhou, Haiwen. 2007b. “Oligopolistic Competition and Economic Geography.” Journal of Regional Science 47, 915-933.

Zhou, Haiwen. 2007c. “Factor Endowment, the Choice of Technology, and the Volume of Trade.” International Economic Journal 21, 593-611.