After the Review

Much has transpired during the 11 years since the review. In the past decade, economists have seen vast improvements in the quality and quantity of available data. Demographic and economic conditions have changed, creating a wider range of fertility and economic outcomes among developing countries. These changes have stimulated further evolution of the debate on population and economic dynamics. An extensive analysis of cross-country data drawn from the 1980s shows that, on average, population growth dampened per capita economic growth³⁴ despite the apparent absence of the same effect in the two previous decades.³⁵ The study indicates that the negative effect associated with population growth in the 1980s was most significant in the least developed countries.

In addition, there is growing evidence of significant feedbacks. These relationships interact back and forth from economic well-being at the family level to assets at the national economy level. In these feedback systems (or complex systems)^,36 institutional function assumes a pivotal role. And, as in all feedback systems, it is difficult and somewhat arbitrary to distinguish between cause and effect. That difficulty sets the stage for endless debate.

Taken together, recent studies suggest that fertility decline and slowed population growth figured importantly in feedback systems--strongly mediated by sound institutions--that were responsible for the ascent of the high performing East Asian economies. Research in the poorest countries describes a reverse effect: feedback systems that have perpetuated economic stagnation and decline. While expanding the revisionists world view, the concept of feedback systems does not upset the basic institutional thesis that underlies it. In fact, several noted economists argued, during the years approaching the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), that demographic-economic feedback systems have important policy implications³⁷and deserve more attention from researchers.³⁸

Revisionists continue to contend that strong, modern institutions can soften the impact of population growth's negative effects on economic productivity. Population growth appears most detrimental and most difficult to surmount in the poorest, least-developed countries, where modern institutions have yet to realize their potential to organize society and economies. Nicholas Eberstadt expresses this conclusion: "[P]opulation growth is clearly a form of social change; nations and governments that cope poorly with change are unlikely to deal adeptly with the disequilibria that more rapid rates of population growth necessarily bring."³⁹