POPULATION AND ECONOMICS IN 18TH-CENTURY MEXICO - AN ANALYSIS OF ANNUAL FLUCTUATIONS

Based on annual series of vital statistics and series of corn prices during the eighteenth century in the central part of Mexico, the present paper systematically analyzes the relation between short-term demographic and economic fluctuations. This study makes use of five year distributed lag models which enable us to see the directionality, intensity and temporal structure of the relations between population and economy. Wherever possible, the data have been controlled for social-ethnic group. The strong influence of prices on fertility and on mortality, as well as the clear social differentiation of many of the observed responses, are among the most salient results of this study.