Doubling time Period that a
given population or other
quantity takes to increase by its
present size.
The world’s population is very
unevenly distributed by
geographic region, by fertility
and mortality levels, and by age
structures.
Rate of population increase The
growth rate of a population,
calculated as the natural
increase after adjusting for
immigration and emigration.
Natural increase The differ-
ence between the birth rate and
the death rate of a given
population.
Net international migration The
excess of persons migrat-ing
into a country over those who
emigrate from that country.
Crude birth rate The num-ber of
children born alive each year
per 1,000 population (often
shortened to birth rate).
Death rate The number of
deaths each year per 1,000
population.
Total fertility rate (TFR)The
number of children that would
be born to a woman if she were
to live to the end of her
childbearing years and bear
children in accordance with the
prevailing age-specificfertility
rates.
Life expectancy at birth The
number of years a newborn
child would live if subject to the
mortality risks prevailing for the
population at the time of the
child’s birth.
Under-5 mortality rate Deaths
among children between birth
and 5 years of age per 1,000 live
births.
Youth dependency ratio The
proportion of young peo-ple
under age 15 to the work-ing
population aged 16 to 64 in a
country.
Hidden momentum of
population growth The
phenomenon whereby
population continues to
increase even after a fall in birth
rates because the large existing
youthful population expands
the population’s base of
potential parents.
Population pyramid A graphic
depiction of the age structure of
the population,with age cohorts
plotted on the vertical axis and
either population shares or
numbers of males and females
in each cohort on the horizontal
axis.
Demographic transition The
phasing-out process of
population growth rates from a
virtually stagnant growth stage
characterized by high birth rates
and death rates through a
rapid-growth stage with high
birth rates and low death rates
to a stable, low- growth stage in
which both birth and death
rates are low.
Stage 1: both high birth and
death rates.
Stage 2: high birth rate and
falling death rates.
Stage 3: both falling birth and
death rates.
Malthusian population trap The
threshold population level
anticipated by Thomas Malthus
(1766–1834) at which
population increase was bound
to stop because life-sustaining
resources, which increase at an
arithmetic rate, would be
insufficient to support human
population, which increases at a
geometric rate.∆The higher the
household income, the greater
the demand for children. ∆The
higher the net price of children,
the lower the quantity
demanded. ∆The higher the
prices of all other goods relative
to children,the greater the
quantity of children demanded.
∆The greater the strength of
tastes for goods relative to chil-
dren, the fewer children
demanded.
Microeconomic theory of fer-
tility The theory that family
formation has costs and bene-
fits that determine the size of
families formed.
Family-planning programs
Public programs designed to
help parents plan and regulate
their family size.
CONSEQUENCES OF HIGH
FERTILITY
 underdevelopment
 World Resource
Depletion and
Environmental
Destruction
 Subordination of
Women
 Population Distribution
Population-poverty cycle A
theory to explain how poverty
and high population growth
become reinforcing.
Reproductive choice The
concept that women should be
able to determine on an equal
status with their husbands and
for themselves how many
children they want and what
methods to use to achieve their
desired family size.
Human capital Productive
investments embodied in
human persons, including skills,
abilities, ideals, health, and
locations, often resulting from
expenditures on education, on-
the-job training programs, and
medical care.
Discount rate In present value
calculations, the annual rate at
which future values are
decreased to make them
comparable to values in the
present.
Conditional cash transfer (CCT)
programs Welfare benefits
provided conditionally on family
behavior such as children’s
regular school attendance and
health clinic visitation.
Educational gender gap Male-
female differences in school
access and completion.
Private benefits The benefits
that accrue directly to an
individual economic unit. For
example, private benefits of
education are thost that directly
accrue to a student and his or
her family.
Derived demand Demand for a
good that emerges indirectly
from demand for another good
Social benefits of education
Benefits of the schooling of
individuals, including those that
accrue to others or even to the
entire society, such as the
benefits of a more
literateworkforce and citizenry.
Educational certification The
phenomenon by which
particular jobs require specified
levels of education.
Basic education The attainment
of literacy, arithmetic
competence, and elementary
vocational skills
Social costs of education Costs
borne by both the individual
and society from private
education decisions, including
government education
subsidies.
Private costs The costs that
accrue to an individual
economic unit.
World Health Organization
(WHO) The key United Nations
agency concerned with global
health matters.
Acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome (AIDS) Viral disease
transmitted predominantly
through sexual contact.
Human immunodeficiency virus
(HIV) The virus that causes the
acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome (AIDS).
Neglected tropical diseases
Thirteen treatable diseases,
most of them parasitic, that are
prevalent in developing
countries but receive much less
attention than tuberculosis,
malaria, and AIDS.
Health system All the activities
whose primary purpose is to
promote, restore, or maintain
health.
Global warming Increasing
average air and ocean
temperatures. Used in
reference to the trend that
began in the mid-twentieth
century and attributed largely
to human industrial, forestry
and agricultural activities
emitting greenhouse gases.
Climate change Nontransient
altering of underlying climate,
such as increased average
temperature, decreased annual
precipitation or greater average
intensity of droughts or storms.
Used in reference to the impact
of the global warming
phenomenon. Note the
distinction between changes in
weather (which varies within a
climate), and change in climate
that alter underlying
probabilities of weather
outcomes.
Environmental accounting The
incorporation of environmental
benefits and costs into the
quantitative analysis of
economic activities.
Environmental capital The
portion of a country’s overall
capital assets that directly relate
to the environment—for
example, forests, soil quality,
and ground water.
Sustainable development A
pattern of development that
permits future generations to
live at least as well as the
current generation, generally
requiring at least
Minimum environmental
protection Sustainable net
national income (NNI*) An
environmental accounting
measure of the total annual
income that can be consumed
without diminishing the overall
capital assets of a nation
(including environmental
capital).
Environmental Kuznets curve A
graph reflecting the concept
that pollution and other
environmental degradation first
rises and then falls with
increases in income per capita.
There is evidence that this holds
for some pollutants, such as
sulfur dioxide and particulate
matter in the air, but not for
others, such as emissions of
greenhouse gases.
Biomass fuels Any combustible
organic matter that may be
used as fuel, such as firewood,
dung, or agricultural residues.
Desertification The
transformation of a region into
dry, barren land with little or no
capacity to sustain life without
an artificial source of water.
Soil erosion Loss of valuable
topsoils resulting from overuse
of farmland, and deforestation
and consequent flooding of
farmland.
Deforestation The clearing of
forested land either for
agricultural purposes or for
logging and for use as firewood.
Total net benefit The sum of
net benefits to all consumers.
Marginal cost The addition to
total cost incurred by the
producer as a result of
increasing output by one more
unit.
Producer surplus Excess of
what a producer of a good
receives and the minimum
amount the producer would be
willing to accept because of a
positive-sloping marginal cost
curve.
Consumer surplus Excess utility
over price derived by
consumers because of a
negative-sloping demand curve.
Scarcity rent The premium or
additional rent charged for the
use of a resource or good that is
in fixed or limited supply
Present value The discounted
value at the present time of a
sum of money to be received in
the future.
Marginal net benefit The
benefit derived from the last
unit of a good minus its cost.
Property rights The
acknowledged right to use
andbenefit from a tangible (e.g.,
land) or intangible (e.g.,
intellectual) entity that may
include owning, using, deriving
income from, selling, and
disposing.
Common property resource A
resource that is collectively or
publicly owned and allocated
under a system of unrestricted
access, or as self-regulated by
users
Externality Any benefit or cost
borne by an individual
economic unit that is a direct
consequence of another’s
behavior.
Internalization The process
whereby external
environmental or other costs
are borne by the producers or
consumers who generate them,
usually through the imposition
of pollution or consumption
taxes.
Public good An entity that
provides benefits to all
individuals simultaneously and
whose enjoyment by one
person in no way diminishes
that of another.
Public bad An entity that
imposes costs on groups of
individuals simultaneously.
Compare public good.
Free-rider problem The
situation in which people can
secure benefits that someone
else pays for.
Clean technologies
Technologies that by design
produce less pollution and
waste and use resources more
efficiently
Private costs The direct
monetary outlays or costs of an
individual economic unit.
Pollution tax A tax levied on the
quantity of pollutants released
into the physical environment
Social cost The full cost of an
economic decision, whether
private or public, to society as a
whole absorptive capacity The
capacity of an ecosystem to
assimilate potential pollutants.
Greenhouse gases Gases that
trap heat within the earth’s
atmosphere and can thus
contribute to global warming
Biodiversity The variety of life
forms within an ecosystem.
Global public good A public
good, whose benefits reach
across national borders and
population groups.
Debt-for-nature swap The
exchange of foreign debt held
by an organization for a larger
quantity of domestic debt that
is used to finance the
preservation of a natural
resource or environment in the
debtor country