How does population density influence agricultural intensification and productivity? Evidence from Malawi

•Higher rural densities are associated with smaller farms and lower farm wages.•Crop revenue per hectare is not increasing in population density.•Households in densely populated areas increasingly rely on off-farm income.•However, off-farm income increases in density only up to about 400persons/km2.•Our results suggest limits to Boserupian intensification in very dense rural settings. This article uses nationally representative household-level panel data from Malawi to estimate how rural population density impacts agricultural intensification and household well-being. We find that areas of higher population density are associated with smaller farm sizes, lower real agricultural wage rates, and higher real maize prices. Any input intensification that occurs seems to be going to increasing maize yields, as we find no evidence that increases in population density enable farmers to increase gross value of crop output per hectare. We also find evidence that households in more densely populated areas increasingly rely on off-farm income to earn a living, but there appears to be a rural population density threshold beyond which households can no longer increase off-farm income per capita.