Tag: development

How scientists and policymakers collaborate towards sustainable Bristol

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

In the world facing increasingly complex and interdisciplinary challenges, our job descriptions expand to account for new collaborations, duties, and types of knowledge to engage with. Civil servants are now expected to ground their policies in evidence, while scientists are required to translate their findings so that they’re useful to the citizens, industry practitioners or politicians.

Climate action is no different. It comes to life at the curious intersection of activism, political will, market incentives, democratic mandate and, of course, scientific knowledge. As a university researcher, I am on a mission to ensure academic knowledge serves Bristol’s transition to the sustainable city.

An effective collaboration across the worlds of science and policy requires some professional unlearning. Convoluted and jargon-filled academic writing style is not going to cut it if we’re serious about influencing ‘the real world’ (sorry). Similarly, our traditional output formats are simply too long to be accessible for policymakers. I also firmly believe that we ought to advance public debates, rather than solely our respective disciplinary conversations; for that matter we need to invite a broader set of discussants to the table.

After 4 years of researching city-level climate policymaking, my head was filled with ideas and recommendations to the key local decisionmakers. Luckily, upon the completion of my PhD I have been offered a role on the Bristol’s Advisory Committee for Climate Change (BACCC). Over the past two years (well, nearly), we have been scrutinising the development of One City Climate Strategy and advising the local council on their policy development.

What does it involve in practice? – You might be asking. Our work so far has been mostly focusing on synthesising the academic evidence and communicating it in an effective way (with lots of help from a team in PolicyBristol, thank you!). Knowing ‘what works’ to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is one thing, conveying the message to convince politicians and citizens is no less a challenge!

Below, I’d like to tell you about three ways experts at BACCC collaborated with policymakers on local climate action:

  1. Submission of evidence to the national government inquiry: Covid impact on transport
  2. Analysis of policy gaps and opportunities: Energy White Paper
  3. Rapid review of evidence: Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

Submission of evidence to the national government inquiry

Over autumn 2020, Bristol City Council approached us for comments on the national inquiry exploring Covid-19 impacts on transport. At BACCC, we advised the council on the scope of the evidence submission, communication strategy and appropriate ways to present the data. We wanted to convey a message of a city that sees the covid-19 response as a leverage to ‘bounce forward’ to innovative and sustainable transport solutions rather than ‘bounce back’ to the old ways we deemed as normal:

“The council’s long-term ambition is to make the new road layouts permanent, creating cleaner air and better bus, walking and cycling journeys, alongside ongoing plans for a mass transit public transport system. The pandemic has had huge impacts on usual travel habits and, despite its challenges, air pollution levels dropped by almost half during the months of lockdown with big increases in walking and cycling. It would be prudent to capture those benefits and protect the long-term public health of the city”.

We are hoping that this submission, together with wealth of data on how people move will encourage the national government to devolve significant proportions of transport funding so that city leaders can turn covid emergency measures (e.g. bollards, signage, temporary closures) into high quality urban infrastructure.

Access the evidence here.

Analysis of policy gaps and opportunities

Policy landscape is dynamic; no single person has time to keep up with all the strategic documents, funding announcements and consultation opportunities. It is vital, therefore, that we are able to align the national policy direction with the local climate strategy. In early Spring 2021, we delivered a rapid assessment of gaps & opportunities, following our analysis of the National Government “Energy White Paper” and “10 Point plan”. While there are clear overlaps (e.g. in the funding for electric vehicles, retrofits, heat pumps installation), certain local ambitions cannot be clearly mapped to the national agenda. As such, we risk that Bristol’s plans in the realms of zero-carbon freight consolidation, solar generation or business carbon emissions will not come to fruition.

Read the full paper here.

Rapid review of evidence

Energised by the fierce (yet polarising) debate on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, we set ourselves to review the literature on the impacts, risks and opportunities on this controversial topic. We reviewed academic literature (from statistical public health analysis to qualitative human geography), news items and policy reports to provide a balanced feedback to the local planners. In particular, we wanted to disentangle empty rhetoric from genuine concerns to cool down the temperature of the conversation.

We provided six key recommendations:

  1. Reassure that the co-design process is taking place to deliver Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
  2. Show compelling evidence on: the benefits to health, safety and lower traffic speed.
  3. Clarify misconceptions about: potential traffic displacement, lack of accessibility for emergency services, lack of access for deliveries and blue badge holders, loss in customer footfall.
  4. Acknowledge complexities to do with the potential for short-term disruptions and the risk of gentrification
  5. Challenge sensationalist media reporting by dispelling unverified claims, exposing exaggerated claims and monitoring the evolving conversation.
  6. Above all, set out the narrative:
    • We need to make positive changes: we cannot continue as now for the health and wellbeing of our communities and beyond.
    • Some disruption is inevitable, and we will try to mitigate this and work with those affected, though the benefits are real and important.
    • What will be delivered will improve the environment for local people – and help to address national and international ambitions.

Access the full review and detailed recommendations.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Ola Michalec, a social scientist based at the University of Bristol, researching regulation in the domain of digital innovations for sustainable energy. Ola also serves as a member of the Bristol Advisory Committee for Climate Change.

Dr Ola Michalec

 

 

Why cities are crucibles for sustainable development efforts (but so hard to get right)

Posted on by janet.crompton
Figure 1. Rural and urban population trends, 1950-2050.
Fox, S. & Goodfellow, T. (2016) Cities and Development, Second Edition. Routledge.
Sustainable Development Goal 11 outlines a global ambition to ‘make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’. It is arguably one of the most important of the 17 recently agreed Goals, but we’re unlikely to reach it in most parts of the world by 2030.
The importance of Goal 11 stems from global demographic trends. As Figure 1 illustrates, over 50% of the world’s population already lives in towns and cities, and that percentage is set to rise to 66% by 2050. In fact, nearly all projected population growth between now and 2050 is expected to be absorbed in towns and cities, and the vast majority of this growth will happen in Africa and Asia (see Figure 2).

These trends mean that when it comes to eliminating poverty and hunger, improving health and education services, ensuring universal access to clean water and adequate sanitation, promoting economic growth with decent employment opportunities, and creating ‘responsible consumption and production patterns’ (and achieving many other goals) urban centres are on the front line by default.

 

 

Figure 2. Estimated and projected urban population increase by region, 1950/2000 & 2000/2050
Dr Sean Fox, Lecturer in Urban Geography and Global Development, University of Bristol
But cities are complex political arenas prone to the kinds of conflicts that can thwart ambitious visions for transformative development.

To appreciate just how difficult it can be to achieve seemingly obvious and desirable improvements in cities, it is useful to examine some practical challenges. Consider the goal of ensuring access to clean, affordable water for all (Goal 6, Target 1; Goal 11 Target 1). In cities across Africa and Asia, a significant share of households live in informal settlements that lack piped water infrastructure. As a result, most residents rely on water provided by private vendors who sell water by the bucketful from tanker trunks or standpipes that they control. Perversely, the poor often end up paying a significant premium for their water on the open market, while more fortunate residents who are connected to municipal infrastructure pay far less. This perpetuates inequality, both between socioeconomic groups and between men and women (as women generally bear the burden of water collection in such contexts), and it also means that there are groups of people with fairly strong incentives to resist infrastructure investments: the water vendors. And these vendors sometimes take aggressive steps to protect their captive markets and thwart infrastructure development.

A similar dynamic is often at play when it comes to upgrading informal settlements more generally. In many cities poorer households do not have formal (i.e. legally binding) tenure security but rather pay some form of rent to a third party in return for protection against eviction. This form of ‘land racketeering’ is often undertaken by the very politicians and bureaucrats who should be seeking to improve citizens’ lives.
In other words, urban underdevelopment creates profitable opportunities for some, which in turn creates interest groups opposed to change.

But even rich cities, with well-developed physical infrastructure and formal tenure arrangements, often suffer from political gridlock that impedes progress. Consider the city of Bristol in the UK. Bristol was recently voted the best place to live in the UK, yet the city also suffers from dangerous levels of air pollution, which is linked directly to debilitating levels of traffic congestion in the city.

While Bristol’s transport woes have long been recognized, it has proven fiendishly difficult to tackle the underlying problem: a lack of metropolitan-scale transport planning and investment integrated with land use plans. This is due to a legacy of ‘horizontal fragmentation’ and ‘vertical dependence’.
Figure 3. Map of Greater Bristol with council boundaries

Horizontal fragmentation refers to the fact that Greater Bristol—i.e. the functional area of the city as defined by daily commuter behaviour—is home to over 1 million people spread across four different local government areas, each with its own budget, council, transport planning processes, etc. As Figure 3 clearly shows, the local government boundaries (in red) carve up this functional urban region into four artificial parts). Indeed, in some places, such as north Bristol, local government boundaries run straight through clearly contiguous built-up areas (represented as grey). The challenge of coordinating planning and investment across four councils is compounded by the fact that in the past any major infrastructure investment needed to be approved and funded by the UK central government (i.e. the problem of vertical dependence). This support is not necessarily forthcoming. An ambitious plan tabled around the turn of the millennium to integrate city transport with a tram network, and make the whole system more inclusive for low income residents, was rejected by central government. This is a prime example of how political challenges in wealthy countries impede development progress.

In sum, there are significant political obstacles to progress in poor cities and rich cities alike. But this doesn’t mean that progress is impossible. In fact, recognising and understanding these political complexities is helpful in identifying effective courses of action, whether as citizens, activists or policymakers. I doubt we will fulfil the aspirations of SDG 11 in a convincing manner by 2030, but I am hopeful that progress can be made if we approach the challenge with our eyes wide open to the political dynamics that could undermine our efforts.

Blog by Dr Sean Fox, School of Geographical Sciences. Originally hosted by the Policy Bristol blog.


The views expressed here are personal views and do not reflect the views of the funders of our research.

 

Interests in Aid and Development: a talk with Myles Wickstead

Posted on by janet.crompton

Ever wondered what a career in aid and development is like? Or how the world’s current development programmes came into being? Look no further than this blog on Myles Wickstead who gave a Cabot Institute lecture and short interview on his reflections and experiences on a colourful career in aid and development.

Among Wickstead’s notable achievements are a position as head of British Development Division in Eastern Africa, coordinating a British Government White Paper on eliminating world poverty and now being an advisor to the charity Hand in Hand International.

An audio recording of Myles lecture can be found above. His talk focussed largely on the inception of the building blocks of international development; the UN, the World Bank and the International Monetary fund. He began by turning back time towards the end of the second World War, in which the atmosphere of global reconciliation bred the need for trans-border institutions such as the UN that had the oversight necessary for peace to prevail.

Many years later, the UN decided to introduce development goals with the aim of reducing global poverty within a given time frame. The first of these was the Millennium Development Goals which were drafted in the UN head quarters with little external solicitation. In fact, Wickstead reminisced that environmental goals were almost completely overlooked and only added when a member of the committee ran into the director of the UN environment department on the way to the copier room…

Wickstead went on to add that a large parts of the Millennium goals were generally quite successful although there was still plenty of scope to be more inclusive. He also dwelt on the new Sustainable Development Goals drafted by the UN in 2015 and the Paris climate summit which, Wickstead claims, represent a much more integrated approach to propel international development into the future.

Below is my interview with Myles in which I question him on his talk and ask him about his career in aid and development:

You mentioned a fair bit in your talk about the importance of tying in environment sustainability with aid and development. How do you see that working in practice in a developing country when sustainable practices can be sometimes be quite anti-economic? 

Yes, the two things are brought together in the Global Goals for Sustainable Development agreed in New York in September 2015.  Let’s take an example of a country that’s well-endowed with forest resources. They could get rich quickly by chopping down the trees and selling the wood. You can’t expect those countries to simply say ‘we are not going to chop our forest down’. Firstly you need them to realise that for the long-term sustainability of their country they need to preserve the  forest. But second, because maintaining the forests helps protect us all from climate change they rightly expect some compensation from the international community to do so. There are (albeit imperfect) mechanisms in place for this. Despite this I do, on the whole, think they are being successfully implemented: take Brazil for example.

There are also examples where – often without the consent of the government – indigenous forests are being cut down to make way for palm oil plantations, with devastating consequences not only for the trees but the wildlife.  In these situations, governments need to be encouraged to take firm action against the individuals or  companies concerned, again with support from the international community as and if appropriate.

I work on volcanic hazard in Ethiopia and one of the things I’ve noticed is the more wealthy urban areas are developing fast with an expanding middle class, but the more rural areas are still subject to a lot of extreme poverty. What part should external aid play in helping this wealth filter down?

It’s a very important question and one I touched on when talking about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which were in place from 2000-2015.  That period saw extraordinary progress, including halving the proportion of people living in absolute poverty, but many people (for example, those with disabilities or from ethnic minorities) were left out.  It is also the case that urban areas, with generally better infrastructure and more job opportunities, tended to make faster progress.  A lot of people in rural areas were in very much the same position in 2015 as in 1990. Within Ethiopia, a combination of rapid economic growth – supported both by investment and aid  – and good policies mean that the benefits are now being felt more widely.

The role of Chinese investment in infrastructure, particularly roads, has I think been quite a positive one. The Government of Ethiopia has a very clear five year growth and investment plan and they expect their partners to deliver; I remember one case of former Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles requiring a Chinese company to rebuild a road they had just built as it was not up to standard; I am sure they were equally exacting of other companies from other countries.  Not all African governments have that kind of determination but on the whole I think Chinese engagement has been a good thing.  And the fact that Africa was largely unaffected by the global recession following the crash of 2008 was not only because it was not as connected to the international financial system as other parts of the world, but also because China and other countries in Asia continued to buy its raw materials.

What influenced your decision to have a career in Aid and development?

I had lived and travelled overseas a little.  My father was a marine biologist and as a technical expert worked for the predecessors of DFID and lived and worked overseas in places like Singapore, Tanzania, and Jamaica.  So I probably got some of the wish to live and work overseas from him – though alas didn’t inherit the science gene, which passed me by!

I went through the civil service fast stream process, and having successfully negotiated that had to make a choice about which Department I wanted to join.  It was then the Ministry of Overseas Development; a few years later became the Overseas Development Administration of the FCO; and in 1997 became a fully-fledged Department of State with its own Cabinet Minister. Interestingly, DFID remains the most popular choice of all government departments for fast-steam applicants.

Is there a defining moment in your career you want to mention? 

I have been extraordinarily lucky in the choices that I have made – or have been made for me – in terms of where I was at particular time. To have had the chance to run a regional office in Africa; to have been on the Board of the World Bank; to have worked closely with Ministers both as a Private Secretary and in coordinating the 1997 White Paper (the first in 24 years); and to be Ambassador to Ethiopia and the African Union – it was a huge privilege (and very hard work!) to be given these responsibilities.  I ran the Commission for Africa Secretariat in 2004/5, and I suppose one of the great moments was going to present a copy of the Commission’s Report ‘Our Common Interest’ in 2005 to Nelson Mandela.

Someone asked earlier today- how do you keep positive despite the gloomy state of much of the world? My answer would be that the world has made extraordinary progress over the past quarter of a century in pulling people out of poverty, and that we have a real chance of completing the task, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, by 2030. Of course there have been setbacks along the way, and there will be more – conflict and environmental challenges to name but two. But with political will, and by maintaining a positive focus, I believe we can aspire to a better world both for ourselves and for future generations.

Blog post by Keri McNamara

Is population growth good or bad for economic development? Part 2

Posted on by janet.crompton

This blog has been reposted with kind permission from the LSE International Growth Centre blog.  In the previous post we described the shifting views of economists and demographers regarding the relationship between population growth and economic development. In short, rapid population growth in developing countries was thought to be a problem in the 1950s and 1960s, irrelevant (or even positive) in the 1970s and 1980s, and again an obstacle to robust economic growth from the mid-1990s up until today. Moreover, these changing views were very much in line with the evidence available for each period. How can we explain this?
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There is currently no consensus on the matter. But we argue that this is an instance where historical context really matters for models of economic development and interpreting empirical data.

The post-WWII boom and bust

Since the end of World War Two, there have been two quite distinct sub-periods to world economic growth, which are well documented by economic historians ([i],[ii]). The first was the post-war economic boom, which ended around 1973. As Table 1 shows, the global economy grew very rapidly between 1950 and 1973. Indeed, wealth was created more quickly during this period than any other—either before or since.

It was an era of extraordinary political and economic change characterised by decolonisation, the rapid diffusion of knowledge and technology around the world, booming international trade, and high levels of public and private investment in the growing number of sovereign nations. It was also a period of historically unprecedented population growth, driven in large part by rapid declines in death rates, primarily in poorer countries.

Table 1

This all changed in the early 1970s. The collapse of the Bretton Woods system and rising inflation exposed the world economy to the risk of recession—a risk that was realised with the first Arab oil embargo in 1973. A further oil price shock in 1977, a series of debt crises in developing economies in the 1980s, and the disintegration of the USSR around 1990 led to a sustained period of economic malaise, with the notable exception of rapid growth in some East Asian countries.

Between 1973 and 1990 in particular, global GDP per capita growth slowed considerably. Despite a slight recovery between 1990 and 2008, GDP per capita never regained the momentum of the post-war ‘Golden Age’. Since 2008, global growth has been downright miserable.

Rapid economic growth mitigates the potential negative impact of rapid population growth

In considering these trends, two key observations must be made. First, accelerated population growth in the post-war boom years was stimulated largely by the diffusion of medical knowledge, technologies, and public health initiatives that dramatically reduced death rates from infectious and parasitic diseases ([iii],[iv]). This coincided with a period of rapid economic growth. However, importantly, sustained improvements in mortality did not depend on sustained economic growth. Among other things, this is evident from the fact that there is no obvious correspondence in Table 1 between population growth rates and GDP growth rates at the global level.

sustained improvements in mortality did not depend on sustained economic growth

Second, in a surging world economy (i.e. between 1950 and 1973) poorer countries benefited from a positive investment environment and burgeoning employment opportunities. At both the household level and the aggregate macroeconomic level this buoyant economic environment likely helped mitigate the economic strains associated with the larger family sizes and accelerated population growth that characterised the period.

When times are tough, family size matters more

After 1973, mortality continued to decline in most countries despite stagnating output. This meant that, in the aggregate, there was less output produced (e.g. income) per person. Sluggish global growth also meant that the pie of investment and employment opportunities shrank, rendering larger families a greater economic liability at both the household and the macroeconomic level.

With less income-earning opportunities, but the same number of children, households must cut spending—in some cases they may even need to pull children from school and put them to work. In the aggregate, this translates into lower savings, less investment, and a workforce that may ultimately be less productive (if less educated or unhealthy).

In sum, the negative impacts of rapid population growth were masked in the earlier period by a buoyant global economy and mortality decline that happened to accompany rapid economic growth, but was not ultimately dependent upon this growth. When this unique episode of global economic history came to an end in 1973, the underlying negative association between population growth rates and economic growth rates was revealed.

the negative impacts of rapid population growth were masked in the earlier period by a buoyant global economy and mortality decline that happened to accompany rapid economic growth

We can see this in Table 2, which presents a very simple regression model periodised in line with our interpretation of the role of history in shaping the statistical relationship between population growth and economic growth. We look at changes in the relationship over the entire time period, and within each of the two discrete economic periods outlined in the historical analysis above.

In column 1, we find a clear negative and statistically significant correlation between these variables when considered over the long run (i.e. between 1950 and 2008) and controlling for initial GDP per capita. In column 2, which covers the economic boom period from 1950 to 1973, we find no statistically significant relationship between these variables. The negative and highly statistically significant relationship returns, however, when we consider the period of economic slow-down after 1973, as we expected.

Table 2

This model is clearly highly stylised: economic growth performance depends on a wide range of factors beyond population dynamics, such as investment, trade, education, and the quality of political and economic institutions. Our key point is that properly periodising the simple cross-sectional models that have been at the heart of so much debate (and policy) provides some important insight into the matter.

If our interpretation of the data is correct—i.e. if global economic circumstances do indeed mediate the relationship between demographic change and economic performance—then the post-2008 regime of weak global growth doesn’t bode well for poor countries with high birth rates.

While there has been a modest resurgence of interest in family planning initiatives among international development organisations in recent years, much more could be done to ensure that all adults (and women in particular) have the means to choose how many children they have. Indeed, the UN estimates that today there are about 225 million women who do not want to become pregnant, but are not using safe and effective means of family planning.

if global economic circumstances do indeed mediate the relationship between demographic change and economic performance—then the post-2008 regime of weak global growth doesn’t bode well for poor countries with high birth rates.

The challenge is a particularly urgent for many countries in Africa and the Middle East—where the potential micro and macroeconomic benefits of reducing very high fertility levels are likely to be considerable.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Sean Fox from the University of Bristol’s School of Geographical Sciences.

Sean Fox

Note on sources

All data up to 2008 used in these posts were derived from Angus Maddison’s Statistics on World Population, GDP and Per Capita GDP, 1-2008 AD; data for 2008-2014 is from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators. Our sample for Figure 1 and the Table 2 consists of all countries with a population of 5 million or more in 2008 for which data were available. 102 countries fit these criteria and collectively represent 94% of the world’s population.

[i] A. Maddison, Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 AD, (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007).

[ii] Frieden, Jeffry A. (2006) Global Capitalism: It’s Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

[iii] Preston, Samuel H. (1975) ‘The changing relationship between mortality and level of economic development’, Population Studies, Vol. 29 (2): 231-248.

[iv]Cutler, David, Deaton, Angus and Adriana Lleras-Muney (2006) ‘The Determinants of Mortality’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 20 (3): 97-120.

Is population growth good or bad for economic development? Part 1

Posted on by janet.crompton

This post is the first in a two part series exploring the relationship between population growth and economic development – a relationship that appears to have changed over time.  This blog has been reposted with kind permission from the LSE International Growth Centre blog.
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The relationship between population growth and economic development has been a recurrent theme in economic analysis since at least 1798 when Thomas Malthus famously argued that population growth would depress living standards in the long run. The theory was simple: given that there is a fixed quantity of land, population growth will eventually reduce the amount of resources that each individual can consume, ultimately resulting in disease, starvation, and war. The way to avoid such unfortunate outcomes was ‘moral restraint’ (i.e. refraining from having too many children). He didn’t foresee the technological advances that would raise agricultural productivity and reduce the toll of infectious diseases—advances that have enabled the world’s population to grow from 1 billion in 1798 to 7.4 billion today.

Nevertheless, his essential insight that population growth constitutes a potential threat to economic development remained influential and informed international development policy agendas, especially in the 1950s and 1960s—a period marked by unprecedentedly rapid rates of population growth in many developing countries.

given that there is a fixed quantity of land, population growth will eventually reduce the amount of resources that each individual can consume, ultimately resulting in disease, starvation, and war.

Quantity vs Quality: How family sizes affect investment

At that time, the general view of economists was that high birth rates and rapid population growth in poor countries would divert scarce capital away from savings and investment, thereby placing a drag on economic development. They hypothesized that larger families have fewer aggregate resources and fewer resources per child. Larger families therefore spread their resources more thinly to support more children. This leaves less for saving and investing in growth-enhancing activities. It also reduces spending on enhancing the economic potential of each child (e.g. through education and health expenditures).

In the aggregate, these household level consequences of high birth rates were believed to exert a significant negative effect on per capita income growth ([i],[ii],[iii]).

high birth rates and rapid population growth in poor countries would divert scarce capital away from savings and investment, thereby placing a drag on economic development

This view underpinned the major rise in international funding for family planning in the 1960s and 1970s, with the aim of reducing birth rates and hence rates of population growth.

Forget moral restraint, was Malthus wrong?

In the 1970s numerous empirical studies, utilising the growing volume of comparable international data, failed to detect a robust relationship between national population growth rates and per capita income growth ([iv], [v]).

Writing in Science in 1980, Julian Simon summarised this research, emphasising that “[e]mpirical studies find no statistical correlation between countries’ population growth and their per capita economic growth”. Indeed, he maintained long run effects were positive ([vi]). This more sanguine view influenced the policy position of the US government at the World Population Conference in Mexico City in 1984—namely that “population growth is, by itself, a neutral phenomenon [with respect to economic growth]” ([vii]). This view arguably contributed to a major fall in international funding for family planning programs, beginning in the 1990s ([viii]).

But the story doesn’t end there. In the 1990s researchers made two discoveries that questioned the neutrality of population growth with respect to economic development. First, analyses of the remarkable economic trajectory of East Asian countries in the late 20th century suggested a sizeable fraction of their impressive economic growth was attributable to high levels of savings and investment facilitated by earlier fertility declines ([ix], [x]). Second, new research suggested that there was in fact a negative association between population growth and economic performance.

A population’s age composition matters for economic growth

When fertility rates decline over a sustained period of time the proportion of the working age population (i.e. over 15) grows relative to the economically dependent youth population. This change in age composition creates a window of opportunity during which a country can potentially raise its level of savings and investment—a phenomenon now known as the ‘demographic dividend’. This finding prompted a subsequent reconsideration of the potential importance of reducing fertility in pursuit of growth.

change in age composition creates a window of opportunity during which a country can potentially raise its level of savings and investment—a phenomenon now known as the ‘demographic dividend’.

The second key discovery in the 1990s was the emergence of a negative correlation between population growth and economic growth in further analyses of international cross-sectional data ([xi], [xii]). In 2001, Birdsall and Sinding summarised the new position, stating that “in contrast to assessments over the last several decades, rapid population growth is found to have exercised a quantitatively important negative impact on the pace of aggregate economic growth in developing countries” ([xiii]). A recent meta-analysis of this research concluded that a negative relationship emerged in the post-1980 data, and that its strength has increased with time ([xiv]).

Figure 1: Population growth and economic growth, 1950-2008

Moreover, as Figure 1 illustrates, the simple cross-sectional relationship between population growth and economic growth is clearly negative when viewed over the long run (i.e. 1950-2008).

Next time: Can economic history settle the debate between demographers and economists?

What explains the discrepancy between the early research, which found little evidence of a relationship between population growth and economic growth in cross-sectional data, and more recent work which finds a negative and significant one? We will tackle this question in our next post, which examines the unique economic history of the 20th century, and how this might help explain why economists seem to keep changing their mind—and why demography is more important than ever in a post-2008 global economy.
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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Sean Fox from the University of Bristol’s School of Geographical Sciences.  Read part two.

Sean Fox

 

Notes & further reading

[i] A. J. Coale and E. M. Hoover, Population and Economic Development in Low-Income Countries, (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1958).

[ii] Kuznets, Simon (1960) ‘Population change and aggregate output,’ in Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

[iii] S. Kuznets, Pro. Am. Phil. Soc. 111, 170 (1967).

[iv] S. Kuznets, Pro. Am. Phil. Soc. 111, 170 (1967).

[v] S. Kuznets, in The Population Debate: Dimensions and Perspectives, Volume 1, (United Nations, New York, 1975).

[vi] J. L. Simon, The Ultimate Resource, (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1981).

[vii] Policy Statement of the United States of America at the United Nations International Conference on Population, reproduced in Popul. Dev. Rev. 10 (3), 574 (1984).

[viii] J. Bongaarts and S. W. Sinding, Int. Perspect. Sex Reprod. Health 35(1), 39 (2009).

[ix] D. E. Bloom and J. G. Williamson, World Bank Econ. Rev. 12(3), 419 (1998).

[x] A. Mason, Ed. Population Change and Economic Development, (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2001).

[xi] J. A. Brander and S. Dowrick, J. Popul. Econ. 7(1), 1 (1994).

[xii] R. J. Barro and X. Sala-i-Martin, Economic Growth, (MIT Press, Cambridge Mass, 2004).

[xiii] N. Birdsall and S. W. Sinding in Population Matters—Demographic Change, Economic Growth, and Poverty in the Developing World, N. Birdsall, A. C. Kelley and S. W. Sinding, Eds. (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001).

[xiv] D. D. Headey and A. Hodge Popul. Dev. Rev. 35(2), 222 (June 2009).

The Global Goals: How on Earth can geologists make a difference?

Posted on by janet.crompton
Image credit: Geological Society

On the 30th October the Bristol Geology for Global Development (GfGD) group trekked off to London to the grandeur of the Geological Society for the 3rd annual GfGD conference. Joel Gill, the director of GfGD, opened the conference with the bold claim: “Probably the world’s first meeting of geologists to discuss the Global Goals.” And it’s not an overstatement. Despite first appearances, geology has a crucially important role to play in many of the 17 goals internationally agreedby World Leaders in September this year. So why aren’t we talking about it? The conference acted as a platform for these discussions, it gave geologists a chance to learn how they can actually contribute to the success of these international development targets and it introduced us to new ways in which geology can help make a difference.

Soils and cities

 
Two scientists from the British Geological Survey touched on some particularly interesting examples of unlikely connections with geology and development.
We heard from Dr Michael Watts about how soil geochemistry is being used to maximise the potential to grow nutrient rich crops in places where people lack vital nutrients in their diets. In many areas of Malawi, people are suffering from selenium deficiency, which can cause a weakened immune system and an underactive thyroid. By increasing the alkalinity of the soil it may be possible to increase the amount of selenium in the plants that grow in that soil.
In a world that is becoming increasingly urbanised, Dr Katherine Royse stressed the importance of consulting geologists in urban developments. The subsurface is a finite resource and is being utilised in every possible way beneath cities, for transport, water works, electricity distribution and much more. In London, many infrastructure and building projects end up costing 50% more because developers weren’t aware of subsurface conditions from the outset.
These examples highlight the necessity for geologists to be included in discussions about health, about sustainable cities and about many other Global Goal themes. Geologists have much to bring to the table.

What did you say?

Of course, a big focus of the GfGD conference was about how we can communicate our science to people with no scientific background. If we want to use geology to help better prepare people for natural disasters, or to help make communities more resilient to climate change, explaining simple geological processes in a way that people understand is absolutely key. And often we need to take a step back to get exactly what angle the person we’re communicating to is coming from.

One particularly striking example of communication was introduced by Solmaz Mohadjer and related to children in Tajikistan who wondered why earthquakes were happening to them. Earthquakes happen all over the world and that seems obvious to us, but it’s not necessarily obvious to everyone. These children came up with all sorts of explanations for the earthquakes they were experiencing including that the Earth was balanced on a tower of elephants! 

Children came up with all sorts of explanations for the earthquakes
they were experiencing including that the Earth was balanced
on a tower of elephants!  Image credit S. Mohadjer (ParsQuake.org)

Through educational tools that the children, teachers and teacher trainers can understand, everyone can learn why earthquakes happen and how they can best protect themselves from them.

But we also need to remember we can’t just march in with all the answers. Jonathan Stone from TearFund encouraged us to be aware of what it is that makes someone an expert. The expert isn’t the person who comes along with the scientific explanation, ‘letting knowledge out like a dam’, the new expert is the person who encourages and inspires others to act for themselves.

Inspiring a new generation of geologists

Many Bristol GfGD members who came to the conference didn’t really know what to expect and went away with new perspectives on their subject. With ideas of how geology fits into all sorts of careers, not just the usual oil and mining sector. And with a view of how geology is one cog in the giant machine that is trying to tackle many of the world’s problems through the Global Goals.

The part of the conference that our group found most poignant were the views of early career geologists on how sustainability is integral to their job. In particular, we heard an account from exploration geologist, Sarah Craven, who was calling for people to become ambassadors for sustainability within the mining industry or indeed whichever sector they choose to go into.
Creating a generation of geologists who are mindful of their impact and who are aware of how they can use their skills to positively contribute to international development is at the heart of GfGD.
We lingered at the end of the conference, still in awe of our surroundings at the Geological Society. The buzz in the room was a tell tale sign that the 3rd Annual conference had achieved what it set out to do. Posing questions about how geology fits into the Global Goals, showing us what great work geologists are already doing and inspiring us to go after these opportunities ourselves. Let’s hope when the outcomes of the Global Goals are reviewed in 2030 that we’ll be able to say, “geologists helped to make that happen!”

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This blog has been written by Cabot Institute member Emily White, a postgraduate student in the School of Chemistry at the University of Bristol.

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Bristol GfGD would like to thank the Bristol University Alumni Foundation for supporting this trip. 

 For many of the resources from the conference, please go to the conference webpage.

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