Capital accumulation, endogenous population growth, and Easterlin cycles.

"In this paper we attempt to explain the occurrence of population cycles in industrialised economies where the birth rate depends on the difference between the actual and the expected consumption rate. This model of an endogenously growing population brings together Easterlin's idea of an adapting aspiration level with the neoclassical optimal growth paradigm. It is shown that in this highly aggregated demo-economic system (i.e., without inclusion of the age structure of a population) swings both in the economic and demographic variables may exist. The reason behind this 'strange' optimal behaviour is identified to be an intertemporal substitution effect between current and future levels of consumption."