Was malthus right? a var analysis of economic and demographic interactions in pre-industrial England

Esteban Nicolini ()

IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola

Abstract: This paper shows that the interaction between economic and demographic variables in England before the onset of modern economic growth did not fit some crucial assumptions of the Malthusian model. I estimated a vector autoregression for data on fertility, nuptiality, mortality and real wages over the period 1541-1840 applying a well-known identification strategy broadly used in macroeconomics. The results show that endogenous adjustment of population to real wages functioned as Malthus assumed only until the 17th century: positive checks disappeared during the 17th century and preventive checks disappeared before 1740. This implies that the endogenous adjustment of population levels to changes in real wages -one of the cornerstones of the Malthusian model- did not work during an important part of the period usually considered within the "Malthusian regime".

Date: 2006-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-mac and nep-pke
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Journal Article: Was Malthus right? A VAR analysis of economic and demographic interactions in pre-industrial England (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cte:whrepe:wh060601

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