Population Growth, Human Capital Accumulation, and the Long-Run Dynamics of Economic Growth

This article adopts a modified idea-based growth model with endogenous human capital and population to explain why the theoretically relevant growth effect of population growth on economic growth is empirically unobservable. The model predicts that the economic growth rate is proportional to the growth rates of both population and human capital. The offsetting movement of the growth rates of population and human capital after the demographic transition obscures observation of the growth effect. The model also generates an evolution of the growth rates of population, human capital, and per capita income that is consistent with historical and postwar data.