Population and Economy: From Hunger to Modern Economic Growth

Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population has for the past two centuries been a constant source of inspiration and debate for scholars working on relationships between population and economy in a historical perspective. This book sets a new standard in this active and influential field of research. The contributors go beyond the conventional European and North American geographical boundaries, bringing out new empirical findings and developing new arguments. The volume is divided into three parts. The first part takes up classical issues -- the 'positive' and the 'preventive' checks and their determinants -- raised by Malthus himself, and examines the issues against fresh evidence from Europe, America, and Asia. These issues are also themes of the second part, which is devoted to short-term fluctuations in mortality and fertility in relation to prices, wages, and other economic indicators. The final set of chapters is a coherent collection of technically sophisticated articles from an on-going international joint project concerned with how households respond to economic stress in different economic, social, and cultural settings, in traditional China, Japan, Sweden, Belgium, and Italy. With a brief, but well-organized introduction, this collection of scholarly essays offers both demographers and economic historians a wealth of exciting findings and stimulating insights. Contributors to this volume - George Alter (Indiana University) Michael Anderson (University of Edinburgh) Elizabeth Arias (State University of New York at Stony Brook) Tommy Bengtsson (Odense University/Lund University) Marco Breschi (University of Udine) Cameron D. Campbell (University of California, Los Angeles) Renzo Derosas (Universita Ca'Foscari di Venezia) Patrick Galloway (University of California, Berkeley) Michael R. Haines (Colgate University) E. A. Hammel (University of California, Berkeley) Satomi Kurosu (Reitaku University) James Z. Lee (California Institute of Technology) Li Bozhong (Qinghua University) Katherine A. Lynch (Carnegie Mellon University) Matteo Manfredini (University of Udine) Michael Oris (University of Liege/University of Geneva) Jose Antonio Ortega Osona (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid) Alberto Palloni (University of Wisconsin) Hector Perez Brignoli (University of Costa Rica) David S. Reher (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) Osamu Saito (Hitotsubashi University) Roger Schofield (Cambridge University) Julian Simon (Late of the University of Maryland at College Park) Noriko O. Tsuya (Keio University) Wang Feng (University of California, Irvine)