FROM MALTHUSIAN FRONTIER TO DEMOGRAPHIC STEADY-STATE - THE CONCORDIANBIRTH-RATE, 1635-1993

An exceptionally early and rapid fertility decline was achieved in Con cord, Massachusetts by 1815. This decline was succeeded by a new demog raphic regime characterized by remarkable cyclical responsiveness to m acroeconomic and macropolitical events. The evidence for declining fer tility during the eighteenth century is consistent with so-called Malt husian-Frontier explanations of colonial-era demography, whereas the n ineteenth-century responsiveness to economic and political change reve als a much earlier onset of Easterlin fertility cycles than has previo usly been postulated. The transition from the first to the second regi me followed the emergence of a market economy in rural Massachusetts i n the decade after the American Revolution.