Is modern China a Malthusian society?

On the afternoons of June 17 and 13, the 7 1 series of academic lectures on "Transformation and Development" of the Department of Economics of Fudan University were held in the conference room 5 14 of the Pan-Sea Building of the School of Economics. Teacher Chen Shuo, an associate professor in the Department of Economics of the School of Economics, gave a lecture entitled "Is modern China a Malthusian society?" Wonderful lecture. The lecture was presided over by Professor Zhang Huiming, head of the Department of Economics.

Teacher Chen Shuo first took Malthusian population theory as the breakthrough point and put forward three testable hypotheses: first, there is no fertility change covering most people in Malthusian society; Second, due to the lack of fertility transformation and population transformation, technological progress will only bring about population growth rather than improvement of living standards; Third, the rapid population growth will reduce the per capita living materials and per capita living standards, and increase the probability of "realistic suppression" such as wars and infectious diseases. In order to test the above hypothesis, Chen Shuo collected a large number of historical and economic data, and then analyzed the socio-economic trend of modern China with data from four dimensions: technological progress, population trend, economic growth and war. The breeding time of corn in 1580- 1900 local chronicles is used to measure technological progress, fertility rate and mortality rate are used as indicators of population dynamics, and urbanization and per capita real wages are used as indicators of economic growth. By using autoregressive lag model and error correction model, it is verified whether technological progress has brought about the change of fertility rate, by using double difference method, it is verified whether technological progress has brought about the growth of population and economy, and by using Poisson regression model, it is verified whether the civil war is caused by too many people competing for limited resources. Finally, Chen Shuo's research concludes that modern China is a typical Malthusian society.

According to the econometric test, Mr. Chen Shuo put forward three policy discussions: First, the function of technological progress is to improve the human capital return of people who invent and use technology, and the improvement of human capital return will bring about the demographic change of the whole society. The introduction of corn is only an extensive technological progress, and the slow introduction has not formed a diffusion effect. A single technological progress may not promote the population transformation of the whole social class; Secondly, it is of limited significance to compare a certain part of China with other countries alone, and the redistribution and domestic trade between the central government and local governments should be considered in the analysis; Finally, arguing about the data quality of population and per capita living standards is of limited significance to understanding the pre-modern social and economic dynamics of China. Malthusian society is characterized by an increase in population but a constant living standard per capita, and the core mechanism behind its operation lies in insufficient population transformation.

The lecture was lively and interesting, which attracted teachers and students from all departments of the college. Fan Xiaoyan, Feng, Gao Hong, Ge Jinfeng, He Guanghui, Sun Daquan, Wang Dihai,,, and many other teachers attended the meeting. Teachers attending the meeting expressed their opinions on the substitution of corn and rice, the representative ability of corn to technological progress factors, the influence of immigration on technological diffusion, the influence of traditional Confucian culture on population dynamics, the data standardization of peasant uprising, and the substitution of labor quantity and quality, and had a heated discussion.