CAN POPULATION PRESSURE CAUSE SUSTAINABILITY PROBLEMS TO WORLD ECONOMIC GROWTH? AN ANALYSIS OF THE RECENT PAST (1)

Last registered on March 15, 2024
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
CAN POPULATION PRESSURE CAUSE SUSTAINABILITY PROBLEMS TO WORLD ECONOMIC GROWTH? AN ANALYSIS OF THE RECENT PAST (1)
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012987
Initial registration date
February 23, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
March 15, 2024, 2:33 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
Spain
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Enriqueta Camps-Cura
Affiliation
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2023-03-31
End date
2024-02-04
Keywords
Education, Labor, Welfare
Additional Keywords
Population pressure, inflation, world comparative data
JEL code(s)
A11, A12, I15, J11, N3
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
In this paper we present further quantitative evidence for the impact of population growth on the world economy (prices, per capita GDP) during the second demographic transition. We use population growth as a proxy for the evolution of aggregate demand at the world level as well as the United Nations population-growth projections to the end of the twenty-first century. Since population can be considered as an endogenous variable of the economy, an Instrumental Variable analysis has been developed in order to obtain reliable results on the causality effect of population growth on the world economy. We compare worldwide results with the Instrumental Variables results of the continents that currently represent the greater population pressure on supply: Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. From the regional case studies, we conclude that inflation rates are mostly explained by the purchasing power of populations – that is, the aggregate demand – rather than by population pressure. On the other hand, population ageing in the richest countries (such as OECD and China) have a life-cycle effect that impacts world measures on economic growth: a marginal increase of population causes a marginal decrease of GDP per capita.
(1) Enriqueta Camps acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centers of Excellence in R&D (CEX2019-000915-S) and project PID2022-138443NB-100 from the same institution. We also want to acknowledge research assistance of Kangle Zhu from UPF. I also want to express my gratitude in the memory of Stanley L. Engerman for his cooperation and co-authorship of a first exploratory paper (2014) on the topic. Suggestions by Gianni Marciante at the online session organized by the EHA and the Cliometric Society at the WEAI conference, July 2, 2022, are also welcomed. Albert Carreras and Kaloyan Stanev from the UPF economic history seminar (March 27, 2023) also provided some insights to improve the paper.

 

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Camps-Cura, Enriqueta. 2024. "CAN POPULATION PRESSURE CAUSE SUSTAINABILITY PROBLEMS TO WORLD ECONOMIC GROWTH? AN ANALYSIS OF THE RECENT PAST (1)." AEA RCT Registry. March 15. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12987-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
All data used are public by means of World Bank and Unesco datasets available online. The methododology is econometrical, a comparative country based analysis of a randomized sample at the world level compared to the regions of Subsaharan Africa and Asia which are the world's areas representing the hihger population pressure and therefore can show the deviations from the randomized controlled variables excercise. .I made an IV causality analysisi on the effects of population pressure on the economy at the world level in the recent past.
Intervention Start Date
2023-05-12
Intervention End Date
2024-02-04

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The idea that population pressure could cause problems of sustainability posed by the international agencies can be dismissed. Economic impact is going to depend on the evoluction of the aggregate demand and the adoption of green technologies.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
The variables are obtained from the world bank and UNESCO datasets of free access online. The paper makes a causality exercise on the impact of population growth on the economic varaibles (per capita GDP and prices at the world level) by means of an IV analysis (worldwide and regional for the world's most populated continents). The main outcome is that population pressure per se is not the main factor afecting the economy contrasting with the opinion of UN and the World Bank that were regarding population growth as a problem of sustainability but the key variable to explain the evolution of prices is the purchasing power of population that is the aggregate demand. On the toher side population ageing in OECD caountries has as a result that a marginal increase of population leads to a marginal dcrease of per capita GDP worldwide

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
This paper wants to prove the causality effect of population growth on sustainiability of prices and per capita GDP. It is experimental in the sense that it uses random data (all data availaible at the country level for the regions showing current faster population growth of Asia and Africa and a sample of countries for the world wide analysis). I'm consicous that data at the country level are very aggregate but for for the moment they represent the single alternative for a worldwide analysis, necessary to deal with this problem of sustainability. Given that population is an endogenous varaible of the economy an IV varaible strategy has been adopted that allows to prove that the causality of population pressure on the economy variables is misleading given that population is just a very rouhgt estimation of demand and our regional case studies show that the economic variables (Prices and per capita GDP) depend on the aggregate demand and not just on population size
Experimental Design Details
I made several IV analysis to prove the causality effect of population pressure on the economy at the world level. The IV choosen "Gross Tertiary enrloment rate %" is a strong IV for population according to the F values. Still we are consicious that education is an endogenous varaible of the economy. But gross enrolement rate includes factors related to the family life, the efficency and the history of the education system, istituttional drawbaks that alltogether transform this varaible in a randomized IV variable. Countries ranking the first in Gross tertiary enrolement rate are often the most ineffictient in terms of repetition of courses. It includes students above the ages of what's normative for succesfull students. The correlation rates of this variable with economic varaibles is also very low implying that the standard deviations are not correlated. All in all we assumed after analysing all considerations that this was a good, strong and robust variable. On the other hand the varaibles don't contain outliers.
Randomization Method
I use a random variable as an IV with very low correlation values with dependent varaiables, high F coefficients. Since this is an study at the world levels all countries of the selected hihger population pressure were included. The worldwide results inlude the 6 richest countries of every continent since in the period under consideration (1960-2020) affected by the oil shocks these countires were those more severily affecting the worldwide economic evoluction .
Randomization Unit
Unit=country
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
no clusters used .
Sample size: planned number of observations
5000 observations
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
1500 observations
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
0.001% (0.001)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials