This view, however, was short lived.
Coale and Hoover (1958) brought out a
theory stressing that too rapid population
growth can force families to consume more
resources which otherwise could have been
invested in other sectors of the economy.
More precisely, they argued that if these
resources were invested in growth
enhancing activities (see Section 3 for more
details), it could have been beneficial to
long-term economic growth. Put differently,
such theory pointed out the potential
negative relationship between population
and economic development. During the
following two decades, the perspective
about the relationship of population growth
and economic development experienced
an opinion swing period, which went back
to the negative supply-side impacts
of population as noted years before
by Malthus. As documented by Kelley (1988:
1685-1728), several empirical studies
supported this idea. Moreover, a prominent
example in favour of this view concerns the
case of the countries in the Third World.
During the period 1960s-1980s, they had a
rapid population growth rate and a very low
living standard. Thus, the prevailing opinion
was that in the less developed countries,
the lack of aggregate demand was no
longer important for economic development
and some government agencies such as the
U.S. Agency for International Development
promoted birth-control policy programs.