Kremer illustrates this by showing that as the population of the earth has increased, the rate of population growth has increased rather than declined. Had humans been a burden consuming resources, then the larger the population, the lower the quantity of resources available to each individual and the lower the rate of economic growth and thus population growth, as the Malthusian model predicts. But because humans are themselves the resource, and productive ideas are the driver of economic production, a larger number of humans results in more productive ideas and technologies, more production
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