Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-smtgx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-20T07:06:45.545Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND EVOLUTION: PARENTAL PREFERENCE FOR QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF OFFSPRING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2013

Jason Collins ,
Boris Baer  and
Ernst Juerg Weber
Jason Collins*
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia
Boris Baer
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia
Ernst Juerg Weber
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia
*
Address correspondence to: Jason Collins, Economics (M251), Business School, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth, Western Australia 6009, Australia; e-mail: jason@jasoncollins.org.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper presents a quantitative analysis of the model developed by Galor and Moav [Galor, Oded and Omer Moav (2002) Natural selection and the origin of economic growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(4), 1133–1191] in which agents vary genetically in their preference for quality and quantity of children. The simulation produces a pattern of income and population growth that resembles the period of Malthusian stagnation before the Industrial Revolution and the take-off into a modern growth era. We also investigate the stability of the modern growth era as an absorbing state of the model under the introduction of a strongly quantity-preferring genotype. We show that, given the absence of a scale effect of population in the model, the economy can regress to a Malthusian state under this change in the initial distribution of genotypes.

Keywords

EvolutionNatural SelectionGrowthEducationHuman Capital

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Macroeconomic Dynamics , Volume 18 , Issue 8 , December 2014 , pp. 1773 - 1796
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Alchian, Armen (1950) Uncertainty, evolution and economic theory. Journal of Political Economy 58 (3), 211–221.Google Scholar
Ashraf, Quamrul and Galor, Oded (2013) The “out of Africa” hypothesis, human genetic diversity, and comparative economic development. American Economic Review 103 (1), 1–46.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S. (1960) An economic analysis of fertility. In Universities National Bureau Committee for Economic Research (ed.), Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries: A Conference of the Universities-National Bureau Committee for Economic Research, pp. 225–256. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S. (1976) Altruism, egoism and genetic fitness: Economics and sociobiology. Journal of Economic Literature 14 (3), 817–826.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S. and Lewis, H. Gregg (1974) Interaction between quantity and quality of children. In Schultz, T. W. (ed.), Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital: A Conference Report of the National Bureau of Economic Research, pp. 81–90. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S., Murphy, Kevin M., and Tamura, Robert (1990) Human capital, fertility and economic growth. Journal of Political Economy 98 (5), S12–37.Google Scholar
Cavalli-Sforza, L. Luca, Menozzi, Paolo, and Piazza, Alberto (1994) The History and Geography of Human Genes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, Gregory (2007) A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Gregory (2010) The macroeconomic aggregates for England, 1209–2008. In Alexander, J. (ed.), Research in Economic History, vol. 27, pp. 51–140. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing.Google Scholar
Clark, Gregory and Hamilton, Gillian (2006) Survival of the richest: The Malthusian mechanism in pre-industrial England. Journal of Economic History 66 (3), 707–736.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles (1859) On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Galor, Oded and Michalopoulos, Stelios (2012) Evolution and the growth process: Natural selection of entrepreneurial traits. Journal of Economic Theory 147 (2), 759–780.Google Scholar
Galor, Oded and Moav, Omer (2002) Natural selection and the origin of economic growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics 117 (4), 1133–1191.Google Scholar
Galor, Oded and Weil, David N. (2000) Population, technology, and growth: From Malthusian stagnation to the demographic transition and beyond. American Economic Review 90 (4), 806–828.Google Scholar
Graves, Joseph L. (2002) What a tangled web he weaves. Anthropological Theory 2 (2), 131–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansson, Ingemar and Stuart, Charles (1990) Malthusian selection of preferences. American Economic Review 80 (3), 529–544.Google Scholar
Haveman, Robert and Wolfe, Barbara (1995) The determinants of children's attainments: A review of methods and findings. Journal of Economic Literature 33 (4), 1829–1878.Google Scholar
Hirshleifer, Jack (1977) Economics from a biological viewpoint. Journal of Law and Economics 20 (1), 1–52.Google Scholar
Lagerlof, Nils-Petter (2006) The Galor–Weil model revisited: A quantitative exercise. Review of Economic Dynamics 9 (1), 116–142.Google Scholar
Nelson, Richard R. and Winter, Sidney G. (1982) An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Netzer, Nick (2009) Evolution of time preferences and attitudes toward risk. American Economic Review 99 (3), 937–955.Google Scholar
OECD (2009) Education at a Glance 2009: OECD Indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing.Google Scholar
Planka, Eric R. (1970) On r- and K-selection. The American Naturalist 104 (940), 592–597.Google Scholar
Robson, Arthur J. and Samuelson, Larry (2007) The evolution of intertemporal preferences. American Economic Review 97 (2), 496–500.Google Scholar
Robson, Arthur J. and Szentes, Balázs (2008) Evolution of time preference by natural selection: Comment. American Economic Review 98 (3), 1178–1188.Google Scholar
Rogers, Alan R. (1994) Evolution of time preference by natural selection. American Economic Review 83 (3), 460–481.Google Scholar
Rubin, Paul H. and Paul, Chris W. II (1979) An evolutionary model of taste for risk. Economic Inquiry 17 (4), 585–596.Google Scholar
Spolaore, Enrico and Romain Wacziarg (2009) The diffusion of development. Quarterly Journal of Economics 124 (2), 469–529.Google Scholar