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Summary
The theory of the low-level equilibrium trap asserts that an increase in income stimulates population growth sufficiently so that the additional people ‘eat up’ the ‘surplus’ over subsistence, and hence drive the level of income back to subsistence. Originally the theory referred primarily to mortality, but nowadays its application is to fertility. In the long-run equilibrium context in which the theory is ordinarily presented, the fact that the long-run elasticity of fertility with respect to income is negative in less developed countries fatally contradicts the accepted version of the trap. But to give every chance for trap theory to be meaningful, the paper presents a period-by-period analysis, embodying larger-than-observed positive elasticities during the early years and the logically necessary counterbalancing negative elasticities during the later years. These elasticities are combined with consumption and production figures for various age groups to estimate the effect in each year after the windfall, and altogether. The results show that even under assumptions not charitable to the conclusion of this paper, additional children do not even come close to ‘eating up’ the increase in income which induced their births, so that the trap theory is falsified.
This paper had its origin in a sharp criticism by A. G. Blomquist in a review of R. Ridker's ‘Population and Development’ in the Journal of Economic Literature for 1978 of its key idea, as stated in a couple of sentences in an earlier book and article The Effects of Income on Fertility, Chapel Hill, 1974, pp. 93–95, ‘Income, Wealth and their Distribution as Policy Tools in Fertility Control’ in Population and Development. The Search for Selective Interventions. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1976. The review was by A. G. Blomqvist in Journal of Economic Literature. December 1977, pp. 1384–5. I had thought that the point was obvious when once stated; correspondence with Blomquist, however, makes clear that the point requires a full exposition in order to have a chance to be persuasive. I have drawn upon the 1973 publication for some sentences in this article. I appreciate thoughtful comments by Paul Beckerman, Richard Nelson, Samuel Preston and a referee.
This paper had its origin in a sharp criticism by A. G. Blomquist in a review of R. Ridker's ‘Population and Development’ in the Journal of Economic Literature for 1978 of its key idea, as stated in a couple of sentences in an earlier book and article The Effects of Income on Fertility, Chapel Hill, 1974, pp. 93–95, ‘Income, Wealth and their Distribution as Policy Tools in Fertility Control’ in Population and Development. The Search for Selective Interventions. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1976. The review was by A. G. Blomqvist in Journal of Economic Literature. December 1977, pp. 1384–5. I had thought that the point was obvious when once stated; correspondence with Blomquist, however, makes clear that the point requires a full exposition in order to have a chance to be persuasive. I have drawn upon the 1973 publication for some sentences in this article. I appreciate thoughtful comments by Paul Beckerman, Richard Nelson, Samuel Preston and a referee.
Notes
This paper had its origin in a sharp criticism by A. G. Blomquist in a review of R. Ridker's ‘Population and Development’ in the Journal of Economic Literature for 1978 of its key idea, as stated in a couple of sentences in an earlier book and article The Effects of Income on Fertility, Chapel Hill, 1974, pp. 93–95, ‘Income, Wealth and their Distribution as Policy Tools in Fertility Control’ in Population and Development. The Search for Selective Interventions. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1976. The review was by A. G. Blomqvist in Journal of Economic Literature. December 1977, pp. 1384–5. I had thought that the point was obvious when once stated; correspondence with Blomquist, however, makes clear that the point requires a full exposition in order to have a chance to be persuasive. I have drawn upon the 1973 publication for some sentences in this article. I appreciate thoughtful comments by Paul Beckerman, Richard Nelson, Samuel Preston and a referee.