I guess that's a "no", Fester.

>>I would have thought it obvious that the Australian living standard is underpinned by a per capita infrastructure cost.<<

I'm not sure that you will find "I would have thought it obvious..." counts as evidence, pretty much anywhere. Except, perhaps, amongst new-earth creationists.

Nor, in fact, is the assertion "I have heard that..."

>>I have heard that the infrastructure cost for a stable population typically amounts to about an eighth of the budget<<

That's around $40 billion. Can you support that with any evidence?

"I thought it was obvious the government spends $40 billion a year on infrastructure" is not quite what I have in mind, by the way.

>>With two percent population growth the cost amounts to about a quarter of Government expenditure...<<

I'll pass over the dodgy arithmetic for a moment, and ask "how much additional tax revenue does the two percent population growth deliver each year?"

And please, don't tell me "I thought it was obvious".

>>Salt reduction is another measure which could deliver a very substantial public health benefit.<<

Implementing that might be fun, I would think. How would you go about that?

>>I think it unreasonable to think that the advance of medicine will stop.<<

Me too. It will not come, though, without cost. Ask your local hospital how much more they would like to spend on diagnostic tools, if they were given the opportunity. That will give you an idea of the scale of the investment.

Whether it will lower overall health costs, or simply add to the tax burden of those in work, is unknown.

>>But I think you might also take another look at Provo, Utah [it] seems to offer much with a population of about 120,000<<

Absolutely. And the Provo-Orem MSA is projected to have the greatest population increase in the 2010 United States Census, 47%.

What is your point, again?

Pericles

I thought that as an advocate of growth you would have some idea of the cost of infrastructure? It seems that you have little idea, despite the regular mention of infrastructure costs and spending in the press. Where have you been, Pericles? Under a rock? In a museums collection of Greek antiquities gathering dust? Maybe you were attending a pop growth cargo cult service with your eyes and ears covered? For the 2011 Queensland budget, revenue is about 40 billion and infrastructure spending is about 18 billion. That is substantially more than 25%, but on average it is about 12% of the budget for a stable population.

As you have pointed out, you have to consider the evidence. Ignoring infrastructure cost and its implications does little to support your case for growth, and only seems to substantiate my epithet.

The mining boom provides a good opportunity to move away from a growth based economy. By retraining the workforce instead of relying on importing labour, there is a substantial infrastructure saving. This would also initially allow a greater development of Australia's export infrastructure, which would improve the trade balance.

And while I'm at it I may as well talk a bit more about health and the relevance of cost and benefit, of which you demonstrate little understanding.

<Implementing that might be fun, I would think. How would you go about that?>

To make such flippant comment on something that could have a profound impact on peoples health suggests immaturity. There is currently substantial investigation as to what measures could effectively reduce salt intake. The researchers have the intelligence to see their efforts as a bit more than "fun".

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7045Y320110105

"Me too. It will not come, though, without cost."

Is that so? What if you compare the cost of managing a polio victim with the cost of giving a polio vaccination? I have often seen this claim made that health costs will just increase. But this makes little sense, both because it ignores the profound impact of things like antibiotics and vaccinations, and because it does not consider the economic contribution of people who have their illnesses treated. As an example, HIV infection is managed with an expensive cocktail of drugs, but it allows those infected to live productive lives. Balance this against the cost of not offering treatment, where you have miserable people who are unable to work and require frequent hospitalisation and emergency care.

Similarly, if successful treatments were developed for things like spinal injuries, the initial cost of treatment might be great, but I suspect that the cost would be far less than that of today's lifetime health costs and lost productivity.

Fair enough, Fester, you have made the point about Queensland's infrastructure costs. I had forgotten the effect of your major industries on the need for road and rail infrastructure. I am pleased to have given you the opportunity for a few gratuitious insults too, I hope you enjoyed them.

But the point you are missing in all this is the linkage between population growth and economic growth. Remember the article under discussion?

Since we're talking about Queensland, here are their numbers for the last ten years.

1999-00 Pop. Growth 1.7% GDP Growth 6.6%
2000-01 Pop. Growth 1.9% GDP Growth 2.8%
2001-02 Pop. Growth 2.4% GDP Growth 5.4%
2002-03 Pop. Growth 2.5% GDP Growth 5.7%
2003-04 Pop. Growth 2.4% GDP Growth 4.6%
2004-05 Pop. Growth 2.4% GDP Growth 6.2%
2005-06 Pop. Growth 2.4% GDP Growth 3.7%
2006-07 Pop. Growth 2.6% GDP Growth 5.5%
2007-08 Pop. Growth 2.7% GDP Growth 4.0%
2008-09 Pop. Growth 2.8% GDP Growth 1.1%
2009-10 Pop. Growth 2.0% GDP Growth 2.3%
(prelim)

According to my trusty calculator, that's a 29% increase in population, delivering a whopping 59.6% economic benefit. Per capita GDP up by 23.6%.

Any thoughts?

Incidentally, I think your idea of a cost-free health-care programme is a little optimistic. But let's stick to population and economic growth, just for the moment.

<Any thoughts?>

Well, aside from there being no apparent correlation between population growth and gdp growth, your data sheds no light on the question "What would have happened without the population growth?". This is the question that the research attempted to shed light on.

Having looked at Eben's research though, my criticism would be that its conclusion might follow from the fact that affluence and education tend to have a negative correlation with fertility. Provo might be an exception either because of the Mormon creed to have large families (?), or because you are looking at a successful city at a time before the increased affluence and education has had enough time to reduce fertility.

Would it be a bad thing if population growth were shown not to have a benefit? I think it would be better to determine its effect, be it positive, negative, or neutral. That way we can all benefit from planning measures which have supporting evidence, rather than be subjected to well intentioned but unsubstantiated measures which may cause harm.

That doesn't take us very far, does it Fester?

>>Well, aside from there being no apparent correlation between population growth and gdp growth, your data sheds no light on the question "What would have happened without the population growth?". This is the question that the research attempted to shed light on.<<

The article uses statistics to support a case maintaining that "cities with stable population outperform fast growing cities"

As I have shown, neither the statistics the author himself employs, nor data covering our own State of Queensland, support this conclusion.

Now you appear to agree that there is "no apparent correlation".

Furthermore, you seem to expect this data, which has already failed to support the premise as intended, to illuminate the question "what would have happened without the population growth?"

Frankly, that's not a useful line of questioning, for many reasons.

It is impossible, first of all, to determine with any degree of credibility, "what might have happened" in different circumstances. That can only ever be guesswork, given the number of - competing - assumptions that would need to be made.

"What would Europe look like if WWI hadn't happened?" would be an equally valid, and equally unanswerable question, regardless of which set of numbers you choose.