| Population, Development and Welfare in the History of Economic Thought Contributor(s): Sunna, Claudia (Author) |
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ISBN: 0415362784 ISBN-13: 9780415362788 Publisher: Routledge OUR PRICE: $133.00 Product Type: Hardcover Published: December 2025 This item may be ordered no more than 25 days prior to its publication date of December 31, 2025Annotation: Throughout the history of economic thought, analysis of demographic phenomena is rarely unconnected with consideration of economic development. The relationship between the two has changed through time and its exact nature is still not entirely clear today. The effect of population growth, or decline, on economic development and social welfare is still very much a matter of debate. In this important new volume, Claudia Sunna charts the history of this most important of topics from the Mercantilist era until the present day - in which the writings of Malthus, Wicksell, Pareto and Keynes are key. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Business & Economics | Economic History - Social Science | Sociology - General - Business & Economics | Economics - General |
| Dewey: 304 |
| Series: Routledge Studies in the History of Economics |
| Physical Information: 256 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The relation between demographic phenomena and economic development is a complex one and has changed throughout time; today the relationship is still unclear and the effects of population growth on development and social welfare are still a matter of debate. In this book, Claudia Sunna examines how this relationship has been considered in the history of economic thought, from Mercantilism to the beginning of the 20th century, demonstrating how it has been a common feature in Mercantilist, Classical, Marginalist, Neoclassical and Keynesian paradigms. Sunna argues that the ideas of marginalist authors on population and development in particular mainly went beyond the analytical frame of economic theory due to the fact that in the static model that they developed, population was an exogenous variable. Sunna considers such economists as Wicksell and Pareto with their theory of the oeoptimum population , or Marshall with his theory of long period growth who tried to consider the population variable in the new analytical frame. Others, like Jevons, Walras, Edgeworth, Sidgwick, dealt with this subject in non-analytical works. Sunna argues that all were influenced by the classical scheme and that even Keynes, up to the end of the Twenties, used a classical way of reasoning in order to explain unemployment as a demographic phenomenon. This book will be of interest to student and researchers in history of population theory and economics development, as well as those adopting an interdisciplinary approach to demography and sociology. |