This work seeks to answer the "population question," i.e. the effect of population growth on production per capita. This question has lingered in economic thought for centuries and to this day two general lines of thought can be identified, which might be marked as the "optimist" and the...

In spite of two centuries of extensive debate, a consistent framework of the classical theory of population on which economists can universally agree has not been established. This means that either the theory lacks consistency or it has been misunderstood in important ways. This paper attempts...