Population Growth and Diminishing Returns: Knut Wicksell on the Causes of Poverty

Mats Lundahl
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Mats Lundahl: Stockholm School of Economics

Chapter 3 in Seven Figures in the History of Swedish Economic Thought, 2015, pp 55-83 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Arguably, Knut Wicksell is the greatest Swedish social scientist of all times. However, the subject of poverty and population is one of the few areas where the conventional wisdom is that he failed to produce anything very original. The only credit usually given to Wicksell for his writings on these subjects is for what he had to say about optimum population (Robbins, 1927, note, p. 118; Gottlieb, 1945, pp. 291–292; Spengler, 1983; Pitchford, 1974, p. 87; Hutchinson, 1967, p. 391; Fong, 1976, p. 314; Lindahl, 1958, p. 35; Schumpeter, 1954, p. 582; Sommarin, 1926–1927, p. 29). The remainder of his writings on population are generally considered not to belong to his most original pieces. Thus, writers on Wicksell either tend to pass them by altogether, give them a mere cursory treatment, or state more or less explicitly that they are doctrinaire and lacking in originality (Uhr, 1951, pp. 832–834, 1962, pp. 3, 59–60, 328–329, 1991; Gårdlund, 1996; Gustafsson, 1961, pp. 203, 226; Fong, 1976, p. 314; Henriksson, 1991, p. 40; Pålsson Syll, 2002, p. 241).

Keywords: Population Growth; Labor Force; International Trade; Wage Rate; Capital Stock (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1057/9781137293091_3

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