REPLY Limits to Growth Plan B (SD7057)

[SDMAIL Khalid Saeed]

Posted by  Khalid Saeed <saeed at wpi.edu>

Let me first of all thank you all for the responses. Jack, I do not know 
the root cause yet, but am trying to formulate a hypothesis. Roy and Bob 
point to interesting evidence and beliefs. I personally do not think we 
carry out a rational economic analysis for determining the number of 
children we should have. We want to have them because they are our 
little toys who bring joy to life (and the pro-creation process is fun 
too). Also, children add to the social standing in most cultures. They 
also bring relief in taxes and create concessions in employment and 
every day life. In societies where alternative sources of joy are fewer 
(like poor countries) and social standing is hard to achieve through 
alternative channels due to the limitation of opportunity, there might 
be a greater value placed on having more children. 

Re the relationship between population, workforce and economic growth, 
the connections might also occur through a larger pool of entrepreneurs 
entering the market in a larger population and an expansion in demand 
for goods and services arising from a larger population. I also thought 
of marketing since it might provide further impetus to the growth 
process by forcing us to buy things that we do not need and thus 
creating overproduction. I think the research on the connection between 
population and economic growth has been based on beliefs rather than 
facts and considerable rethinking is needed on this issue for a policy 
search aimed at containing the growth in population.

Best,

Khalid
Khalid Saeed, PhD
Professor of Economics and System Dynamics
Social Science and Policy Studies Department
WPI, Worcester, MA 01609
Posted by  Khalid Saeed <saeed at wpi.edu>
posting date  Mon, 26 May 2008 13:43:53 -0400