In this podcast, we delve into the economic impacts of population decline. We talk about the broad trend (and general concern) around declining birth rates, aging populations, emigration, and shrinking workforces. We cover many of the concerns that people hold, but we also try to highlight potential benefits in various sectors of the economy, such as labor markets, housing, and healthcare. It turned into a deeper conversation than we were expecting, mostly because of the complex economic issues and their long-term effects on societies around the world.
In this episode, we chat about the following topics:
How much we love Brian O’Roark and all the cool things that he works on.
What types of costs to society could we expect with population decline?
What types of benefits to society could we expect with population decline?
Pop culture clips about economics also include population declines.
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Some Show Notes:
Even though it’s February, Matt is wrapping up his final day of Dry January when we recorded this conversation. He ended it off how he began it, with a virgin Moscow Mule. Jadrian dug through his mini fridge to find another Virginia brew, this time it was another cold one from Starr Hill Brewery: the Whiter Shade white IPA.
Brian O’Roark submitted today’s topic idea, so we spent a little time at the beginning of the podcast highlighting some of the cool projects he’s worked on recently. He’s written books (1,2) on how superheroes can help people learn economics and he’s currently the editor of the Journal of Economics Teaching. He’s also worked on the ways economic concepts appear in Harry Potter:
Matt is in the middle of a cool project that grabs scenes from Game of Thrones that highlight cool economics concepts. The site is still a work in progress, but you can check it out at EconThrones.com if you have the time. We also chatted about some other projects we’ve worked on recently, including economic concepts in Squid Game and using music to teach agricultural, applied, and environmental economics.
There are a lot of famous examples of how people predict mass hysteria around population decline, but we should likely discount their confidence a bit. Jadrian brought up some of his prior work showing that people benefit more from being confident than they do from being accurate. Matt tied it back to one of the most famous examples, the Simon–Ehrlich Wager. You can read more about it in The Bet by Paul Sabin.
There are some obvious negative impacts around decreased production, fewer resources for entitlement programs, and a potential decrease in innovation. While discussing those, we were able to hit on some potential benefits as well. Some interesting issues also came up when discussing the economics of health care and education. The challenge, and perhaps the more fun part of the discussion, came when discussing the potential benefits to society. We’d love to hear which implications you are most interested in learning more about:
This Week’s Pop Culture References:
Jadrian’s pop culture reference is to the movie Downsizing. It is “A social satire in which a man realizes he would have a better life if he were to shrink himself to five inches tall, allowing him to live in wealth and splendor.” The economic connection is with the concept of private vs. social perspectives on decision-making. Families may
”downsize” for personal reasons, like saving on living expenses or no longer needing to work, but the social benefits are linked back to overpopulation and reduced human waste.
Matt’s pop culture reference is to HBO’s hit TV show The Last of Us. It has had a major population decline because of a fungus. One person has a self-sufficient economy but still sees there are gains from trade when he meets outsiders.
Watch the clips and hear Matt’s discussion here:
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