On the Rate of Growth of the Population of the United States since 1790 and Its Mathematical Representation

Abstract

It is obviously possible in any country or community of reasonable size to determine an empirical equation, by ordinary methods of curve fitting, which will describe the normal rate of population growth. Such a determination will not necessarily give any inkling whatever as to the underlying organic laws of population growth in a particular community. It will simply give a rather exact empirical statement of the nature of the changes which have occurred in the past. No process of empirically graduating raw data with a curve-can in and of itself demonstrate the fundamental law which causes the occurring change.2 In spite of the fact that such mathematical expressions of population growth are purely empirical, they have a distinct and considerable usefulness. This use- fulness arises out of the fact that actual cotvnts of population by census methods are made at only relatively infrequent intervals, usually 10 years and practically never oftener than 5 years. For many statistical purposes, it is necessary to have as accurate an estimate as possible of the population in inter-censal years. This applies not only to the years following that on which the last census was taken, but also to the inter- censal years lying between prior censuses. For purposes of practical statistics it is highly important to have these inter-censal estimates of population as accurate as possible, particularly for the use of the vital statistician, who must have these figures for the calculation of annual death rates, birth rates, and the like.