Malthusian pressures: Empirical evidence from a frontier economy

Vincent Geloso and Vadim Kufenko

No 42/2015, Violette Reihe: Schriftenreihe des Promotionsschwerpunkts "Globalisierung und Beschäftigung" from University of Hohenheim, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Evangelisches Studienwerk

Abstract: In this paper we study Malthusian pressures in a frontier economy. Using the empirical data on the real prices and demographic variables from 1688 to 1860 for Quebec and Montreal, we test for the existence of Malthusian pressures. Bearing in mind the particularities of frontier economies and the development of the Canadian economy, we conduct cointegration tests and VARs in order to identify positive and preventive checks. The cointegration test reveals absence of long-run equilibrium relationship between real wheat prices, birth and death rates. Using the Bai-Perron test we find a structural break in 1767 and divide the sample in pre- and post-conquest periods. We find that the positive checks were operating in the years prior to the conquest but that they faded during the nineteenth century. In the short-run, we find that wheat prices Granger-cause fluctuations in death rates in the pre-conquest period.

Keywords: Malthusian economy; preventive check; positive check; Canadian history; empirical analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E32 J11 N11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro, nep-his and nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:hohpro:422015

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