Lectures on Fertility, Education, Growth and Sustainability

Population economics studies how demographic variables such as fertility and mortality respond to economic incentives and affect the economic development of societies. The population of a country changes very slowly over time: most of the people who will populate a given territory next year are already alive this year. However, despite slow dynamics and high predictability in the short-medium run, the effect of population on the economic outcomes are far from negligible. On the contrary, as time passes, changes in the population size and composition have dramatic effects.

Population change depends on fertility, mortality, and migration. In these lectures, we focus on fertility, and, more precisely, on the relationship between fertility and resources (or income in a broad sense). Topics to be discussed include the following:

Lecture 1:Differential fertility and the dynamics of inequality - Benchmark model - Growth and inequality - Forerunners in fertility decline De la Croix D. and M. Doepke, Inequality and growth: why differential fertility matters, American Economic Review, 93, 1091-1113, 2003 Slides: 1a, 1b, 1c Handouts: 1a, 1b, 1c

Lecture 2: Education policy - Private vs public schools - Education Politics - Empirical Evidence De la Croix D. and M. Doepke, Private versus public education when differential fertility matters, Journal of Development Economics, 73, 607-629, 2004 De la Croix D. and M. Doepke, To Segregate or to Integrate: Education Politics and Democracy, Review of Economic Studies, 76, 597-628, 2009 Slides: 2a, 2b, 2c Handouts: 2a, 2b, 2c

Lecture 3: Sustainability - Production vs Reproduction, and Pollution Control - Population policy - Environmental collapse De la Croix D.  and A. Gosseries, Population Policy through Tradable Procreation Entitlements, International Economic Review, 50, 507-542, 2009 De la Croix D. and D. Dottori, Easter Island Collapse: a Tale of Population Race, Journal of Economic Growth, 13, 27-55, 2008 Slides: 3a, 3b, 3c Handouts: 3a, 3b, 3c

The lectures are given in Naples (April 2011), Rostock (June 2011), Capetown. (March 2012).

Short presentations are given in Belo Horizonte (June 2011), Barcelona (November 2011).

These lectures will lead to a book published by Cambridge University Press. The cover of the book will show the following painting, representing the Nativity of Mary, from the Church San Giovanni a Carbonara, in Naples, where these lectures where given for the first time (in Naples, not in the church). The dynamics of the characters are interesting.