While several articles preceded or accompanied the book, two published in 1994 and 1995 developed and extended themes from the book.

Tiffen and Mortimore: Malthus controverted: The Role of Capital and Technology in Growth and Environmental Recovery in Kenya, in World Development, Vol, 22, No. 7 1994.

noted that while it is generally accepted that investments in technological improvements, coupled with management innovations and skills, lead to growth rates in industry that outpace population growth, this insight has not been applied to agriculture in developing countries, and that the data needed to do so are generally lacking in farm surveys. Continuing benefit from investments requires maintenance expenditures, of which farmers take account when selecting a new technology. Although the major part of expenditures on farm are made and managed by farmers, government investments may be required to stimulate and complement these, e.g. by providing roads, information etc. A diagram from the book on the pathways from population growth to higher incomes per capita is given, but contains an error in the key: ----- signifies where government actions can encourage [not classify] or impede farmer investments. Please correct this after downloading.

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Tiffen: Population Density, Economic Growth and Societies in Transition in Development and Change, Vol.26 (1995)

This examines the Malthusian, transition and revisionist positions on the relationship between population growth and income growth. It agrees with Boserup on the importance of population density in driving movement towards a more productive agriculture, leading to increased wealth, but point out there are also higher costs for education and land. This provides a link to Caldwell’s 1976 explanation of changing attitudes to family size as the ratio between the economic benefits and costs of children changes. Using data from Machakos in the 1994 study, extending it by comparing it with the more detailed 1989 census data which later became available for Kenya as a whole and adding data from other studies on Kenyan attitudes to family planning, it is possible to show the linkages between population density, market access and a preference for smaller families.

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