Economic Growth in a Malthusian Empire

This chapter examines Rome's lack of an industrial revolution. Without this momentous change, Rome was subject to Malthusian pressures that limited its economic growth. Yet Malthusian economies can have economic growth, which means having rising standards of living. The Malthusian theory of population change argues that changes in productivity lead to changes in the size of the population, but leave the level of per capita income. The chapter shows dynamics providing a way to acknowledge growing per capita income in the basically Malthusian world of the early Roman Empire. It also provides a way to ask if the Romans could have escaped the Malthusian constraints.

Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Empire · Geography · Industrial Revolution · Per capita · Per capita income · Population · Population growth · Productivity · Sociology · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Demography · Historical Economic and Legal Thought