what is the disadvantage of population growth on economic development?

Answer 1

Population growth actually helps long-term economic growth; it means that you don't run into decreasing returns from capital investment as quickly. Check out the Solow Growth model for a detailed explanation.

You tend to see slower population growth in nations that are already "developed", because kids are more expensive (i.e. - they become a luxury item for parents rather than an instrument to produce more family income).

Answer 2

I would say there is NOT a disadvntage of population growth.

If you look at Milton Freedman's book FREE TO CHOOSE he discusses this at length. People are not a burden on the economy, people ARE the economy.

Population growth only becomes a problem when you have an economy that is set up in a "steady state" model. This occurs when either the economy is planned, (as in socialisim) or there are political problems that prevent growth... such as a particular elete trying to maintian power, or political or religious restrictions on resource use, or political instability that makes economic activity unsafe, or massive corruption.

Given a stable government that can enforce contracts, police the streets, and leaves economic activity alone, people don't run out of resources. Instead they find complementary and supplementary goods to take the place of scarce resources; and scarce resources cause high prices whic also encourages conservation, and more importantly the discovery of new resources as well.

Example, political constraints have driven oil prices up to the point that it now makes economic sense to exploit the tar sands around Calgary. According ot eenews.net "Alberta officials say 1.6 trillion barrels of oil are locked in the sandy bitumen under the forests and "muskeg" -- bogs with scattered trees and vegetation -- that dominate the landscape. Of that, 175 billion barrels are proven reserves that can be recovered using current technology." The thing was it cost about $35 to $40 a barrel to exploit it. As long as the Saudis could keep the price per barrel under $37 it wasn' t worth digging the stuff out... once oil hit $60 and $70 it made sense to dig it out, and now the oil is starting to flow from Calgary and the unemployment rate up there is something like 2% now, IIRC.

If you go back and look at the books the "overpopulation" crowd was writing and reading back in the 60s and 70s you will see they are all WRONG. According to Paul Ehrlich, (the guy who started it with "The Population Bomb") the United States would see its life expectancy drop to 42 years by 1980 because of pesticide usage, "hundreds of millions" would starve to death during the 1970s, and the nation's population would drop to 22.6 million by 1999. Since we just passed 300,000,000 this year you can see how spectacularly wrong he was.

I would recomend that you look at the work of Julian Lincoln Simon, a libertarian theorist and the author of the book The Ultimate Resource. He argues a larger population is a benefit, not a cost. To test their two contrasting views on resources, in 1980, Ehrlich and Simon entered into a wager over how the price of five metals would move during the 1980s. Ehrlich predicted that the price would increase as metals became more scarce in the Earth's crust, while Simon insisted the price of metals had fallen throughout human history and would continue to do so. Ehrlich selected the metals himself but still lost the bet. Indeed such was the decline in the price of the five metals Ehrlich selected, Simon would have won even without taking inflation into account.

Simon proposed a second bet, but Ehrlich refused to leave out measures considered by Simon to be trival, so it never happened.

So push come to shove population growth is NOT a disadvantage in economic development, at least not in a free society. Look at Hong Kong, a place where the ONLY resources were people and economic freedom. The same could be said for Tiawan, or to a lesser extent Japan or Israel. People are inventive, intelligent, and capable of working working hard if you give them incentives and let them keep what they earn. The problems you see in so much of the world don't come from a surplus of people, they come from a lack of freedom.

Answer 3

Depends on the countries situation. if the country is relatively rich and has copious space and resources then it would be a good thing. but if there is limited space and resources then it is a recipe for disaster. even if it is in a well off country it will cause environmental damage. The United States was able to handle its rapid growth in the first half of the 20th century because it had the resources and wealth for it. But look at China during the Great Leap Forward it was disastrous and led to widespread starvation.

Answer 4

It depends on two things, (1) how open the economy is, and (2) what the marginal propensity to save is... If the economy is closed and marginal propensity to save is low, capital formation lags population growth, which leads to a decline in capital/labor ratio. In other words, new jobs (if any) are mostly those that require manual labor and pay accordingly.

If the economy is sufficiently open (i.e., foreign-owned factories are allowed) and/or marginal propensity to save is sufficently high, capital formation can stay in line with population growth or even run ahead of it, so new jobs will be mostly those that consist of operating machines, require training, and pay relatively well...

Answer 5

The economy could crash, leaving too many people with no jobs, the prospect of losing their house etc etc, causing civil unrest, resentment, and in an extreme situation anarchy or riots.

Answer 6

dependant on where the growth comes from....ie we have seen a rapid acceleration of our economy due to immagration but we also now can see the problems this can bring.........nazis etc

Answer 7

The answer lies between Malthus and Galbraith

Answer 8

more and more people to feed