**Uniqueness 2 Generic Links 16
Impacts- Econ Good –Overpopulation
Download 0.75 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Impacts- Econ Good- A2: Overpopulation
Impacts- Econ Good –OverpopulationEconomic growth inversely is proportional to population growth Lustig et al 98 (Nora, Nancy Birdsall and Monica Das Gupta, International Union for the study of population, Extract from a Report from the Exploratory Mission on Population and Poverty, http://www.iussp.org/Activities/scc-pov/pov-outline.php, 12/4/98, AD: 7/6/09) The prediction from standard growth theory is that population and economic growth should be inversely related during the transition, but changes in population growth should not affect the long-run growth rate of output per worker. What does the empirical evidence show? up until this decade researchers failed to find any significant relationship between population growth and output growth (4). The interpretation was not that population did not have an effect on economic growth, but that the effects were complex and tended to offset one another. Even in the cases where a negative relationship was found, it varied considerably by country and over time, and the impact of population was small by comparison with other factors affecting output growth. Hence, the traditionalist view that population growth was bad for economic growth was not strongly supported by empirical evidence. Recent research, however, arrives at a different conclusion (5). After assessing, replicating and extending a number of studies, Kelley and Schmidt conclude that there appears to be a sizeable inverse relationship between population growth and economic growth over the period 1960-1995 (6). Specifically, declining population growth, fertility and mortality have had a sizeable positive impact on economic growth. Changing age distributions and rising population density and size also had a positive impact, although the contribution of size is small. Of all the demographic variables, improvements in life expectancy constitute the largest single impact on changes in output growth. Furthermore, the authors also find some evidence that the impact of demographic change is not solely transitional but that it also affects long-run economic growth. This result would imply that mechanisms other than those captured by the standard neo-classical growth model are at work in the real world. One such mechanism could be the relationship between population growth and resource degradation. These results are good news for the many countries that are now passing through the demographic transition. If true, they predict a boost to economic growth and an opportunity to accelerate the pace of poverty reduction. However, as emphasised by the authors, these results should be taken as preliminary. The Kelley and Schmidt study is careful in incorporating the dynamics of demographic change in their analysis (7). The impact on economic growth of a new birth varies over a lifetime: usually negative during the child rearing years, then positive during the labour force years, and possibly negative during retirement. Modelling of demography must account for the patterns of birth and death rate changes over time. Some of the early "no correlation" findings can possibly be due to the fact that no care was taken in decomposing population change in its various factors. But, the question still remains whether the results obtained by Kelley and Schmidt (and others) are robust with respect to different statistical specifications and modelling variants. This is an area where further research is welcome. Impacts- Econ Good- A2: OverpopulationNo Carrying Capacity- Carrying capacity is arbitrary Green 5 (C. Brooks, U of Central Ark, http://www.brooksgreen.net/capacity.pdf.) ET Some scholars have recognized carrying capacity as problematic. Muir (2003) argues, “Logistic growth is very idealized, of course. K [carrying capacity] is not likely to be constant (for example, year-to-year changes in weather effect food production; the richer a life we desire, the lower K for humans is likely to be, etc.). However, the model is useful conceptually.” Muir (2003) concludes by noting, “It is unlikely, however, that we can define a specific K (that is, an actual number) for humans. (People seem to enjoy trying though!).” Hardin (2003) expresses similar concerns. He maintains, “There is no hope of ever making carrying capacity figures as precise as, say, the figures for chemical valence or the value of the gravitational constant.” “As a result,” he writes, “… any particular figure for carrying capacity has a substantial element of the arbitrary in it.” Carrying capacity is variable- adaptation solves Green 5 (C. Brookes, U of Central Ark, http://www.brooksgreen.net/capacity.pdf) ET Second, Cohen (1995) likewise understood that “The future of the human population, like the future of its economies, environment, and cultures, is highly unpredictable” (341). While he noted “… a probabilistic measure of human carrying capacity has been developed for local populations in the Amazon, no probabilistic approach to global human population carrying capacity has been developed” (343). He further maintains, “In basic and applied ecology, the carrying capacity of nonhuman species has been defined in at least nine different ways, none of which is adequate for humans” (343). The problem with calculating human carrying capacity is that “Human carrying capacity depends both on natural constraints, which are not fully understood, and on individual and collective choices concerning the average level and distribution of material well-being, technology, political institutions, economic arrangement, family structure, migration and other demographic arrangements, physical, chemical, and biological environment, variability and risk, the time horizon, and values, tastes, and fashions” (343) Download 0.75 Mb. Share with your friends:
|