人口增长不等于财富增加

/A:V9i*]!W0A year on, there are encouraging signs of a change in attitudes. In particular, economists are increasingly challenging the myth that population growth is essential for economic growth. This is a vital contribution to the debate because higher gross domestic product has become the policy priority of governments everywhere, not least in the high-growth, high-population economies of China and India, each of which already has more than 1bn inhabitants.

There have, of course, been setbacks on the road to common sense. Jim Rogers, who founded the Quantum fund with George Soros, continues to question the wisdom of long-term investment in Japan because “there will be no Japanese” if the current low birth-rate is maintained – a very big “if”. International Monetary Fund economists and Indian government ministers persist in using the awful phrase “demographic dividend” to describe the alleged economic benefits of hundreds of millions of young people entering the workforce, even though these people are just as likely to be a social and fiscal burden in increasingly capital-intensive economies such as India.绿色建筑博客(zu AAP/@+i)w
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QC2L f,\b0The fundamental – and flawed – argument in favour of young and endlessly growing populations was best summed up by Richard Jackson, director of the global ageing initiative of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.绿色建筑博客s*Qu b2xa%~

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@xT0“Relatively faster growth in the US population will translate into relatively faster economic growth,” he asserted in a commentary to mark the day in October when the US population surpassed 300m. “This is not optimism, but simple arithmetic. Japan and many European countries face long-term stagnation or even decline in their real GDPs – and hence the aggregate economic and fiscal resources available to pursue future-oriented agendas, from investing in the young to investing in national defence.”绿色建筑博客1Nf1V3QWa-?

It is tempting to mock this as a pointlessly circular argument: more cannon fodder means more cannons, which means more need for cannon fodder. We should also ask why policymakers focus on absolute economic growth rather than the per capita income growth that would make more individuals better off.绿色建筑博客-d*hW*c(ZL)^`
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If the aim, for strategic reasons, is indeed to increase the absolute size of an economy, it is still foolish to panic about population shrinkage. Birth rates can rise (as they just have in Japan for the first time in years) as well as fall. The past 12 months have provided more evidence of humanity's excessive demands on the world's resources – including fresh water, marine life, fossil fuels and the climate itself – as our numbers climb by 80m a year from 6.5bn today to a predicted 9.3bn in 2050.绿色建筑博客
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Even if one accepts the economic need to boost a country's workforce, increasing the entire local population is a crude way to do it. In Japan – where the population is shrinking, remember – the labour force has been rising this year as older people rejoin the workforce and more women take jobs. Robots and immigrants (even the insular Japanese anticipate the need for more immigration) will also help to keep the economy growing.绿色建筑博客4C-E w9MM\%W

J1O d${'YE0The truth is that nations with small, stagnant or falling populations can produce strong economic growth for the benefit of national power and individual prosperity. If GDP growth depended purely on population increase, Africa, Latin America, Indonesia and the Philippines would be rich and powerful today.绿色建筑博客!`6[8r5i {

m4OOS"_0Sharmila Whelan, economist at investment bank CLSA, concludes in a recent report* on demographics and Japan's economy that since the rise of Venice in the 11th century there has been little connection between economic growth and population size or increase. Innovation and specialisation are more important. She dismisses as “nonsense” predictions that Japan's economy will contract in line with its shrinking population.

Even in China, where population growth has clearly played its part in increasing the absolute size of the economy, Goldman Sachs reckons that accumulation of human capital – essentially education – has contributed more to GDP growth than the growth of the labour force since economic reform began in 1979.绿色建筑博客SP8s:t4c
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It could be argued that ageing populations will not be able to deliver the innovation needed for future economic success and in the case of Japan it is true that the demographic transition will be particularly abrupt.绿色建筑博客/P+T4f2Uf4Gv;Zl.p9W

Yet those who bemoan the cessation of population growth are thinking back-to-front. As people move to densely populated cities, enrich themselves and feel more secure, they tend to have fewer children. It is no coincidence that some of the richest and most crowded places on earth – Tokyo and Hong Kong, for instance – have some of the lowest birth rates.绿色建筑博客\!R4Gw~X

q:?uJm@$d.z+B0The point is not that increased population creates wealth; it is that wealth creation leads ultimately to static or falling population. There is no reason to fight something that is both inevitable and good.

*Power without people: Rising to the challenge – CLSA, September 2006