Is there anyone here interested in explaining economic growth in terms of
knowledge as per Debra Amidon's recent book The Innovation Highway?
Happy to form a readers club if there are any co-believers? Publicly we are
starting an European Union debate on this around here
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=98621d=1h=417f=56datef
ormat=%o%20%B%20%Y
chris macrae [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Original Message -
From: Alypius Skinner [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 11 December 2002 20:40 PM
Subject: Fw: New theory explains economic growth in terms of evolutionary
biology
New theory explains economic growth in terms of evolutionary biology
The struggle for survival that characterized most of human existence
stimulated a process of natural selection that conferred an evolutionary
advantage on humans who had a higher genetic predisposition for a
careful
rearing of the next generation. This evolutionary change permitted the
Industrial Revolution to trigger a change from an epoch of stagnation to
an age
of sustained economic growth, according to the first theory that
integrates the
fields of evolutionary biology and economic growth. This research by
Brown
University economist Oded Galor and Omer Moav from the Hebrew University
is the
lead article in the current Quarterly Journal of Economics.
--
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - It took an evolutionary leap in the human
species
to
help trigger the change from centuries of economic stagnation to a state
of
sustained economic growth, according to the first theory that integrates
evolutionary biology and economics.
Until now, economic growth theory did not have implications for
evolutionary biology, and evolutionary biology did not have implications
for
economic growth, said lead theorist Oded Galor, professor of economics
at
Brown University.
This new theory, the first of its kind ever proposed in the
economics
literature, appears as the lead article in the current Quarterly Journal
of
Economics. It is co-authored by Omer Moav of the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.
The struggle for survival that had characterized most of human
existence
stimulated a process of natural selection and generated an evolutionary
advantage to human traits that were complementary to the growth process,
triggering the takeoff from an epoch of stagnation to sustained economic
growth, the authors wrote in their study.
The evolution of the human brain in the transition to Homo sapiens
increased the evolutionarily optimal investment in offspring's
quality,
said
Galor. This was due to the complementary relationship between brain
capacity
and the return to investment in human capital.
The process gave an evolutionary advantage to people who had
higher
valuation toward offspring's quality, Galor said. The subsequently
increased
prevalence of this genetic trait in the population ultimately permitted
the
Industrial Revolution to trigger a transition to a state of sustained
economic
growth.
The critical natural selection that occurred prior to the
Industrial
Revolution involved the fundamental tradeoff between child-caring and
child-rearing. The epoch of stagnation gave an evolutionary advantage
to
a
higher-quality smaller family rather than to lower-quality larger
families,
Galor said.
Valuation of quality, through better nourishment and education
for
children, fed back into technological progress. And as technology
advanced, it
fed back into more education. Human capital took off. This leap in
evolution
came to dominate the population as a whole, and centuries of economic
stagnation ended.
The authors attribute acceleration in this evolutionary process to
the
emergence of the nuclear family that fostered intergenerational links.
Prior to
the agricultural revolution, 10,000 years ago, people lived among
hunter-gatherer tribes that tended to share resources more equally.
During this hunter-gatherer period, the absence of direct
intergenerational links between parental resources and investment in
their
offspring delayed the evolutionary advantage of a preference for
high-quality
children, said the authors.
In fact, according to the theory, a switch back to a quantity
emphasis
began to take place in the 20th century.
During the transition from stagnation to growth, once the
economic
environment improved sufficiently, the evolutionary pressure weakened
and
the
significance of quality for survival declined, said Galor. The inherent
advantage in reproduction of people who highly value a large number of
children
gradually dominated and their fertility rates ultimately overtook the
fertility
rates of people who value high-quality children, he said.
Oded Galor's
