Conference Paper

Demographic shocks: the view from history: discussion

Abstract: I must admit from the onset that I cannot really be very critical of Massimo Livi-Bacci's work, because much if not most of what I know of historical demography I learned from him, and thus if I were overly critical of him, I would be in the position of spitting into the well from which I have drunk. This is a nice and well-argued paper, although for those of us who have been keeping up with Livi-Bacci's books, there is little here that we did not know before or at least were prepared to believe. But his essay, all the same, is so informed and so chock-full of insights that it inspired me to try to formalize and reflect on some of the things that he talks about, and how we should think about demographic shocks and the impact of political and economic events on mortality, fertility, and similar variables.

Keywords: Economic conditions; Demography;

Status: Published in Seismic shifts: the economic impact of demographic change

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Part of Series: Conference Series ; [Proceedings]

Publication Date: 2001

Volume: 46