Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Eirik S. Amundsen
Author-Name-First: Eirik S. 
Author-Name-Last: Amundsen
Author-Email: Eirik.Amundsen@uib.no
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, University of Bergen
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen
Author-Name: Anders Skonhoft
Author-Name-First: Anders 
Author-Name-Last: Skonhoft
Author-Email: anders.skonhoft@ntnu.no
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Title: Impatience to Consume and Population Growth in a Simple Agrarian Economy
Abstract: This paper studies the relationship between population size and the rate of time preference (RTP) in pre-capitalist subsistence agricultural communities. The RTP is reflected in the community´s propensity to invest in and maintain new arable land that may be considered as an inherent characteristic of the considered community. Using a Malthusian framework, we show how communities with a low RTP end up with a high steady-state subsistence population compared to communities with a high RTP. Furthermore, unsustainable “optimum population” sizes are identified where consumption per capita has a maximal value. Finally, the paper shows that the population growth rate may have no bearing on the resulting subsistence steady-state population size. A population with a higher growth rate only reaches the subsistence steady-state population size faster and have a lower maximal consumption per capita along the path to the subsistence level.
Length: 20 pages
Creation-Date: 2022-02
File-URL: http://okonomi.foi.dk/workingpapers/WPpdf/WP2022/IFRO_WP_2022_01.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
Number: 2022/01
Classification-JEL: O12, Q12
Keywords: Population growth, Malthusian model, Rate of time preference
Handle: RePEc:foi:wpaper:2022_01