La contemporaneidad del Ensayo o por qué no es conveniente olvidar a Malthus / The Contemporary Nature of the Essay or Why One Should Not Forget Malthus

The specter of Malthus returns.

In 1798 economist Thomas Robert Malthus famously predicted that short-term gains in living standards would inevitably be undermined as human population growth outstripped food production and thereby drove living standards back toward subsistence. We were, he argued, condemned by the tendency of population to grow geometrically while food production would increase only arithmetically. For 200 ye...

Marine Conservation: Moving Beyond Malthus

A new study has shown that maximum overfishing of coral reefs occurs among countries at intermediate levels of socio-economic development; can managers and policy makers help countries dependent on these ecosystems avoid the resulting poverty traps?

Malthus to Solow.

"A unified growth theory is developed that accounts for the roughly constant living standards displayed by world economies prior to 1800 as well as the growing living standards exhibited by modern industrial economies. Our theory also explains the industrial revolution, which is the transition from an era when per capita incomes are stagnant to one with sustained growth.... [The authors] use a ...

Malthus and Formal Analysis A

Viewpoint: Sustainability: Malthus revisited?

The sustainability debate concerns whether the world will experience stable or improving living standards for the foreseeable future, or whether the current trajectory will overtax the natural environment, leading to a ‘crash’ in living standards. This paper selectively reviews relevant research, focusing on both ecological concerns and technological progress, and asks whether sustainability wo...