Economic Growth and Evolution: Parental Preferences for Quality and Quantity of Offspring

Collins, Jason; Baer, Boris; Weber, Ernst Juerg

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1851251

Economic Growth and Evolution: Parental Preferences for Quality and Quantity of Offspring

Working Paper

35 Pages Posted: 25 May 2011 Last revised: 27 Aug 2012

See all articles by Jason Collins

Jason Collins

The University of Western Australia - UWA Business School

Boris Baer

The University of Western Australia - Plant Energy Biology

Ernst Juerg Weber

The University of Western Australia - UWA Business School

There are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: August 24, 2012

Abstract

This paper presents a quantitative analysis of the model developed in Galor and Moav, Natural Selection and the Origin of Economic Growth (2002), 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 possibility that the economy will regress to Malthusian conditions after the modern growth era and show the susceptibility of the modern high-growth state to an increasing prevalence of a strongly quantity-preferring genotype.

Keywords: Evolution, Natural selection, Growth, Education, Human capital

JEL Classification: E10, J11, J13, J24, N00, O11

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Collins, Jason and Baer, Boris and Weber, Ernst Juerg, Economic Growth and Evolution: Parental Preferences for Quality and Quantity of Offspring (August 24, 2012). Working Paper. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1851251 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1851251