Day's Malthusian Dynamics in Subsistence Economies: Which Lessons?

This article intends to study demo-economic aspects of the evolution of old societies as it is feared by the traditional models of chaotic dynamics, and notably in the model of Day (1983). The latter is based on the assumption that the demographic growth rate reacts to changes in standard of living, i.e. a constant rate by level, with sudden changes which depend only on living conditions. But, the chaotic dynamics disappears in this model once a progressive adjustment is supposed, limiting its empirical relevance. Prospect studies should construct demographic dynamics of old society without moving away from the standard Malthusian framework.