The Probability of a Cessation of the Growth of Population in England and Wales during the Next Century

Abstract

Many things about which we are habitually obliged to form estimates are of a much more speculative character than the growth of population, and the estimates which we do form about them in many cases actually depend on our estimate of the probable growth of population. There is not a builder nor a town council in the country that is not obliged to prophesy every month what the growth of population in a particular district is likely to be, and it was the speculations of the Metropolitan Water Commission as to the population of London in 1931 that inspired me to make this contribution to the literature of the subject. The real question is not whether we shall abstain altogether from estimating the future growth of population, but whether we shall be content with estimates which have been formed without adequate consideration of all the data available, and can be shown to be founded on a wrong principle.

From The Economic Journal 5. Excerpts are from pages 505–514.