ABSTRACT
Since Second World War, considerable attention has been given to demographic growth in developing countries and its economic consequences. National and international research findings have demonstrated the complexity of the relationships between population growth and economic growth and the need for well-designed studies to quantify the size and direction of the interactions. An exploratory view of the long-term prospects for population growth was prepared by the Population Division of the United Nations Secretariat, which made projections for eight major regions of the world to the year 2100. During the period from 1250 to 1800, time-series evidence from France and England indicates a negative relationship between population growth rates and changes in economic circumstances. Hence, changes in population growth rates were dominated by the mortality component, and the observed negative relationship between population growth and real wages was due primarily to the positive relationship between mortality levels and real wages, presumably reflecting the impact of diminishing returns to labour.
