Notes

Outline

Central Question: Why Europe?

Economic growth. Extensive growth. Total income (Y) increases. Intensive growth. Per capita income (Y/N) increases. ÆExample: India versus Australia.

Income per capita 1999.

What causes (intensive) growth? Resources help. Climate, geography. Guns, germs, and steel.

Population growth and surplus. Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834). Any surplus above necessities leads to population growth, which reduces real wages back down to subsistence.

Malthusian responses. When a Malthusian society generates economic surplus. Technological change to increase productivity. Institutional change to increase productivity. Migration to new land. A Malthusian crisis.

World population growth.