poly: Population Singularities

Here's a '93 paper by an economist on this topic. It's not
very clearly written, but seems to be based on more solid
economic and statistical analysis.

Kremer, Michael, "Population Growth and Technological Change:
One Million B.C. to 1990", Quarterly Journal of Economics,
108(3), August 1993, pp. 681-716.

ABSTRACT

The nonrivalry of technology, as modeled in the endogenous growth
literature, implies that high population spurs technological change.
This paper constructs and empirically tests a model of long-run world
population growth combining this implication with the Malthusian
assumption that technology limits population. The model predicts that
over most of history, the growth rate of population will be
proportional to its level. Empirical tests support this prediction
and show that historically, among societies with no possibility for
technological contact, those with larger initial populations have had
faster technological change and population growth.

There's also some interesting info at:
http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Teaching_Folder/Econ_210a_Fall97/population.html

Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar, Sch. of Public Health 510-643-1884
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 FAX: 510-643-8614
Received on Tue Apr 21 18:09:07 1998