Population growth and economic development
Leontief, W.
Population Bulletin of the United Nations 12: 69-82
1979
ISSN/ISBN: 0251-7604 PMID: 12262112 Document Number: 322100
Describes some of the results of 5 different projections of the future growth of the world economy, each incorporating a different combination of assumptions concerning the future population trends in developed and less developed countries. The computations are based on the multiregional input-output model of the world economy prepared for the United Nations report entitled "The Future of the World Economy." However, the future income levels of the different regions that for the purposes of most of the economic projections included in that report were exogenously prescribed are treated in the present computation as endogenously determined variables. A comparison of the 5 new projections reveals the nature of intraregional and interregional dependence rates of economic growth on population trends in the developed and the 2 groups of less developed countries. The possibility of reducing the "income gap" between the developed and less developed countries is assessed and found to be rather remote so long as the framework of structural, or rather institutional, constraints that now govern economic relationships between these 2 groups of countries continues to prevail.