FARE 2700 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Firm Foundation, Exponential Growth, Human Behavior

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics
• Course: FARE 2700
• Professor: Bethany Liptka

Document Summary

Thomas malthus (1788) he published the classic an essay on the principle of population. Dramatically increasing living standards and life expectancy: two cases suggest that malthus"s self extinction vision may have merit. Study reports that after a. d 400 the population growth began to bump into environmental constraints, specifically the agricultural carrying capacity of the land. The population depended heavily on a single locally grown crop maize for food. By the early 16th century, the carrying capacity of the most productive local lands was exceeded and farmers began to depend on more fragile parts of the ecosystem. Economic result was diminishing returns to agricultural labor and the production of food failed to keep pace with the population. Widespread deforestation and soil erosion began to set in (18th century) and malnutrition started to spread. The royal dynasty an important source of leadership in this society, collapsed rather abruptly.