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ENTERTAINING MALTHUS: BREAD, CIRCUSES, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH.
- Source :
-
Economic Inquiry . Jan2018, Vol. 56 Issue 1, p358-380. 23p. - Publication Year :
- 2018
-
Abstract
- Motivated by the basic adage that man does not live by bread alone, we offer a theory of historical economic growth and population dynamics where human beings need food to survive, but enjoy other things, too. Our model imposes a Malthusian constraint on food, but introduces a second good to the analysis that affects living standards without affecting population growth. We show that technological change does a good job explaining historical consumption patterns and population dynamics, including the Neolithic Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Divergence. Our theory stands in contrast to models that assume a single composite good and a Malthusian constraint. These models generate negligible growth prior to the Industrial Revolution. However, recent revisions to historical data show that historical living standards-though obviously much lower than today's-varied over time and space much more than previously thought. These revisions include updates to Maddison's dataset, which served as the basis for many papers taking long-run stagnation as a point of departure. This new evidence suggests that the assumption of long-run stagnation is problematic. Our model shows that when we give theoretical accounting of these new observations the Industrial Revolution is much less puzzling. ( JEL B10, I31, J1, N1, O30) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00952583
- Volume :
- 56
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Economic Inquiry
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 126419572
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12479