Population Growth and Economic Development in Bangladesh: Revisited Malthus

Bangladesh is the 2nd fastest growing country in the world in 2016 with 7.1% GDP growth. This study undertakes an econometric analysis to examine the relationship between population growth and economic development. This result indicates population growth adversely related to per capita GDP growth, which means rapid population growth is a real problem for the development of Bangladesh. Malthus’s prediction is that population increases so rapidly and outstrip the food supply due to the operation of the law of diminishing return, which is proven wrong because of technological improvement and agricultural advancement program, human capital development, and export skilled labor, promotes labor-intensive industries, encourage foreign investors, institution settings and political stability in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has reduced its population growth by about 67% between 1979 and 2017 using different preventive checks suggested by Malthus and Mill. Bangladesh has been suffering from environmental degradation, loss of arable land, loos of agricultural land biodiversity loss and deforestation. Bangladesh Economy is growing with improving living standard at the cost of environmental degradation