Berlin 2008 – scientific programme

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AKSOE: Arbeitskreis Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

AKSOE 13: Poster Session (posters on display 10:00-19:00)

AKSOE 13.5: Poster

Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 17:30–19:00, Poster G

Socio-Economic Influences of Population Density — •Yuri Yegorov — Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria

While population density represents an important socio-economic parameter, its role is rarely studied in the literature. This paper represents a survey of mostly author*s results on important socio-economic influences of population density. It plays an important role in societies that depend on agriculture and natural resources, but the economic influence is not straight forward. Too high population density decreases the natural endowment per capita, but eases the development of infrastructure, leading to existence of an optimal population density for economic growth. Population density also influences an optimal country size, where the cost balance is now between border protection and communication costs. Ethnic communities based on more cooperative behavior emerge in the case of low cultural and physical distances. Higher probability of large projects (like infrastructure) leads to development of cooperative behavior in the society. Elaboration along these lines leads to the conclusion that population density positively correlates with individualistic (non-cooperative) behavior, through less time spent in cooperative infrastructure projects and higher frequency of meetings between individuals that with some probability lead to non-cooperative games. Population density also influences the demand for a monopolistic product, where too little density can lead to non-survival of a monopoly.