Executive summary: Economic growth models show population growth drives technological progress and GDP per capita, so declining fertility rates threaten long-run growth and should be a top priority for metascience.
Key points:
People enable cooperation, specialization, and idea sharing that powers economic growth not explainable by capital or labor alone.
Historical and cross-country data confirms population size and growth strongly predict technological change and GDP per capita over long periods.
Global fertility rates are plummeting, slowing growth in developed countries already and threatening long-term stagnation.
Some government policies sharply affect fertility, so viable interventions may exist to raise it.
Immigration can temporarily substitute for fertility but still quickens the global demographic transition.
Metascience should prioritize raising fertility given its first-order importance for long-run growth in leading economic models.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: Economic growth models show population growth drives technological progress and GDP per capita, so declining fertility rates threaten long-run growth and should be a top priority for metascience.
Key points:
People enable cooperation, specialization, and idea sharing that powers economic growth not explainable by capital or labor alone.
Historical and cross-country data confirms population size and growth strongly predict technological change and GDP per capita over long periods.
Global fertility rates are plummeting, slowing growth in developed countries already and threatening long-term stagnation.
Some government policies sharply affect fertility, so viable interventions may exist to raise it.
Immigration can temporarily substitute for fertility but still quickens the global demographic transition.
Metascience should prioritize raising fertility given its first-order importance for long-run growth in leading economic models.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.