Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/242547 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
Economics Working Paper Series No. 2016/08
Publisher: 
Auckland University of Technology (AUT), Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, Auckland
Abstract: 
We examine contrasting modalities of economic thought by economists on population problems and policies in NZ, 1900–1980s. Since the early 1900s NZ economists have been concerned with interactions between economic and demographic outcomes. During the inter war period Malthusian concerns were muted because NZ's population growth approximated a stationary state. A 'laissez faire' position was articulated among some economists in terms of external migration flows; others debated the implications of a stationary population. The post WWII era ushered in a doctrine of 'stable population Keynesianism' based on optimistic neo-Malthusianism; that perspective clashed with contemporary views on population expansion and the promotion of immigration coextensive with the policy of planned industrialization. An intellectual void became apparent in the early 1980s, perhaps because concern with the dynamics of population change in a small, liberalized, open economy seemed misplaced. Lessons are drawn from this intellectual history that may inform modern debate on population policy, broadly conceived.
Subjects: 
New Zealand
Population Policy
Migration
History of thought
JEL: 
B2
F22
J11
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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