Population boom heralds big global economic shifts (Reuters)
- Few economists have been as spectacularly wrong as Thomas Malthus, who predicted in 1798 that unchecked population growth would doom the Earth to starvation. As the number of people on the planet reaches 7 billion, his modern-day peers are cautiously confident that the English clergyman will remain synonymous with unwarranted doom and gloom.
With the global population headed for the 9 billion mark by 2050, economists are pinning their faith on continued technological innovation and the invisible hand of market prices to lead to a more efficient, sustainable use of finite natural resources instead of a deadly fight to the end for the last barrel of oil and drop of water.
"Malthus has been proven wrong for the past 200 years, so why should he be right in the next 100?" asked Robert Aliber, a professor of international economics and finance at the University of Chicago.
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