AGGREGATE POPULATION AND ECONOMIC-GROWTH CORRELATIONS - THE ROLE OF THE COMPONENTS OF DEMOGRAPHIC-CHANGE

The results of recent correlations showing a negative impact of popula tion growth on economic development in cross-country data for the 1980 s, versus ''nonsignificant'' correlations widely found for the 1960s a nd 1970s, are examined with contemporaneous and lagged components of d emographic change, convergence-type economic modeling, and several sta tistical frameworks. The separate impacts of births and deaths are fou nd to be notable but offsetting in the earlier periods. In contrast, t he short-run costs (benifits) of births (morality reduction) increase (decrease) significantly in the 1980s, and the favourable labor-force impacts of past births are not fully offsetting.