ECONOMIC GROWTH CENTER
                                
                        YALE UNIVERSITY
                                
                                
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                CENTER DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 793
                                
                                
                                
                   POPULATION AND THE ECONOMY
                     IN GERMANY, 1800-1990
                                
                                
                                
                                
                        Timothy Guinnane
                                
                        Yale University
                                
                                
                         November 1998

     

   Note: Center Discussion Papers are preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussions and
         critical comments.  This is a revised version of the paper originally written in November 1997.

         Financial support for this research was provided by the U.S. National Institute of Health
         (R01-HD29834).

         For help and advice I thank Maryann Belanger, Josef Ehmer, Patrick Galloway, Marcus
        Jones, Walter Kamphoefner, Gerhard Neumeier, Sheilagh Ogilvie, Barbara S. Okun, Uta
        Runyan, Gigi Santow, T. Paul Schultz, Jochen Streb, Simone Wegge, and David Weir.  I owe
        special thanks to John C. Brown, who is a co-author on a related project.  A much shorter
        version of this paper will appear as a chapter in Volume III of Germany: A New Social and
        Economic History edited by Sheilagh Ogilvie and Richard Overy, published by Arnold Press.





        Population and the Economy in Germany, 1800-1990
                                
                                
                       Timothy Guinnane 
                                
                                
                                
                                
                            Abstract
                                
                                
     Germany's turbulent history in the past two centuries has left its mark on her population.  The
industrialization of the nineteenth century promoted rapid population growth, and the spatial
concentration of that industrialization provoked enormous internal migration.  Germany's relatively
late economic development left the country impoverished relative to North America and some other
societies for most of the nineteenth century, promoting extensive emigration.  Like most of western
Europe, Germany experienced a sharp reduction in fertility and mortality rates during the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but these transitions were more abrupt in Germany than
elsewhere.  Twentieth-century turmoil marked Germany's population through death and other
demographic consequences of war and through the huge flows of refugees that followed both World
Wars.  This paper traces the main developments in German population for the past two centuries,
stressing connections to economic issues.






               Key Words:     Population and Economic Development, Germany

               JEL Codes:     N33, N34, J11