The Malthusian theory of evolution disregards a pervasive fact about human societies: they expand through con ict. When this is taken account of the long-run favors not a large population at the level of subsistence, nor yet institutions that maximize welfare or per capita output, but rather institutions that generate large amount of free resources and direct these towards state power. Free res...

Before 1800 all societies, including England, were Malthusian. The average man or woman had 2 surviving children. Such societies were also Darwinian. Some reproductively successful groups produced more than 2 surviving children, increasing their share of the population, while other groups produced less, so that their share declined. But unusually in England, this selection for men was based on ...

The traditional view of Darwin's development of the theory of natural selection is that Darwin was inspired to formulate his theory by reading Mathus' Essay on Population. 1 According to a different notion, Darwin overemphasized his debt to Mathus regarding natural selection in order to hide the impact of other writers, in particular Edward Blyth, on his own thinking. 2 The purpose of this pape...

The Malthusian model of population and economic growth has two key components. First, there is a positive effect of the standard of living on the growth rate of population, resulting either from a purely biological effect of consumption on birth and death rates, or a behavioral response on the part of potential parents to their economic circumstances. Second, because of the existence of some fi...

Abstract Population growth has been closely associated with agricultural production, since the first famine predicted by Malthus (1798) up to Green Revolution of past century. Today, we continue face increasing demand for food and crop production (Tilman et al., 2011). Considering combined caloric or protein content 275 major crops used directly as human foods livestock fish feeds, Tilman al. (...