The Physiological Foundations of the Wealth of Nations
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The Physiological Foundations of the Wealth of Nations. / Dalgaard, Carl-Johan Lars; Strulik, Holger.
Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, 2010.Research output: Working paper › Research
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TY - UNPB
T1 - The Physiological Foundations of the Wealth of Nations
AU - Dalgaard, Carl-Johan Lars
AU - Strulik, Holger
N1 - JEL classification: O11, I12, J13
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Evidence from economics, anthropology and biology testifies to a fundamental trade-off between the number of offspring (quantity) and amount of nutrition per child (quality). This leads to a theory of pre-industrial growth where body size as well as population size is endogenous. But when productive quality investments are undertaken the historical constancy of income per capita seems puzzling. Why didn't episodes of rising income instigate a virtuous circle of rising body size and productivity? To address this question we propose that societies are subject to a "physiological check": if human body size rises, metabolic needs - our conceptualization of "subsistence requirements" - rise. This mechanism turns out to be instrumental in explaining why income growth does not take hold and societies remain near an endogenously determined subsistence boundary. When we use the theory to shed light on pre-industrial cross-country income differences we find that 60-70% of the income differences in 1500 can plausibly be accounted for by variations in subsistence requirements.
AB - Evidence from economics, anthropology and biology testifies to a fundamental trade-off between the number of offspring (quantity) and amount of nutrition per child (quality). This leads to a theory of pre-industrial growth where body size as well as population size is endogenous. But when productive quality investments are undertaken the historical constancy of income per capita seems puzzling. Why didn't episodes of rising income instigate a virtuous circle of rising body size and productivity? To address this question we propose that societies are subject to a "physiological check": if human body size rises, metabolic needs - our conceptualization of "subsistence requirements" - rise. This mechanism turns out to be instrumental in explaining why income growth does not take hold and societies remain near an endogenously determined subsistence boundary. When we use the theory to shed light on pre-industrial cross-country income differences we find that 60-70% of the income differences in 1500 can plausibly be accounted for by variations in subsistence requirements.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - Malthusian stagnation
KW - subsistence
KW - nutrition
KW - body size
KW - population growth
M3 - Working paper
BT - The Physiological Foundations of the Wealth of Nations
PB - Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen
ER -
ID: 17423573