Impatience to Consume and Population Growth in a Simple Agrarian Economy

Eirik S. Amundsen () and Anders Skonhoft ()
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Eirik S. Amundsen: Department of Economics, University of Bergen
Anders Skonhoft: Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

No 2022/01, IFRO Working Paper from University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics

Abstract: This paper studies the relationship between population size and the rate of time preference (RTP) in pre-capitalist subsistence agricultural communities. The RTP is reflected in the community´s propensity to invest in and maintain new arable land that may be considered as an inherent characteristic of the considered community. Using a Malthusian framework, we show how communities with a low RTP end up with a high steady-state subsistence population compared to communities with a high RTP. Furthermore, unsustainable “optimum population” sizes are identified where consumption per capita has a maximal value. Finally, the paper shows that the population growth rate may have no bearing on the resulting subsistence steady-state population size. A population with a higher growth rate only reaches the subsistence steady-state population size faster and have a lower maximal consumption per capita along the path to the subsistence level.

Keywords: Population growth; Malthusian model; Rate of time preference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O12 Q12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2022-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa and nep-gro
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:foi:wpaper:2022_01

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