Ecosystem resilience, specialized adaptation and population decline: A modern Malthusian theory

The purpose of this article is to construct a theoretical framework charact erizing the interactions among economic development, ecosystem equilibrium and possible population decline, and to discuss the population dynamics in the very long run. In our framework, economic activities bridge population and environment. On the one hand, human beings reform the environment throu gh economic activities; on the other hand, economic activities decrease env ironmental resilience and increase the possibility of an environmental chan ge in a discontinuous and irreversible pattern, as described in Arrow et al . (1995). Furthermore, a highly developed economy also causes over-speciali zation of human adaptation: which tends to exaggerate the impact of an envi ronmental change on human population size.