Open AccessBook
Unified Growth Theory
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
Galor et al. as discussed by the authors presented a unified theory of economic growth from the dawn of civilization to today, and explained the worldwide disparities in living standards and population we see today, providing a comprehensive overview of the three phases of the development process.Abstract:
For most of the vast span of human history, economic growth was all but nonexistent. Then, about two centuries ago, some nations began to emerge from this epoch of economic stagnation, experiencing sustained economic growth that led to significant increases in standards of living and profoundly altered the level and distribution of wealth, population, education, and health across the globe. The question ever since has been--why?This is the first book to put forward a unified theory of economic growth that accounts for the entire growth process, from the dawn of civilization to today. Oded Galor, who founded the field of unified growth theory, identifies the historical and prehistorical forces behind the differential transition timing from stagnation to growth and the emergence of income disparity around the world. Galor shows how the interaction between technological progress and population ultimately raised the importance of education in coping with the rapidly changing technological environment, brought about significant reduction in fertility rates, and enabled some economies to devote greater resources toward a steady increase in per capita income, paving the way for sustained economic growth. - Presents a unified theory of economic growth from the dawn of civilization to today - Explains the worldwide disparities in living standards and population we see today - Provides a comprehensive overview of the three phases of the development process - Analyzes the Malthusian theory and its empirical support - Examines theories of demographic transition and their empirical significance - Explores the interaction between economic development and human evolutionread more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
The Rise in Life Expectancy and Economic Growth in the 20th Century
Casper Worm Hansen,Lars Lønstrup +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors exploited conditional exogenous variation in mortality from the diffusion of modern medicine to study the effect of growth in life expectancy on the growth in GDP per capita.
Posted Content
Towards a Unified Theory of Economic Growth
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the need for a unified theory of growth that incorporates an evolutionary perspective and can account for the transition from Malthusian stagnation to the modern growth regime.
Journal ArticleDOI
Gender equity and the escape from poverty
Klaus Prettner,Holger Strulik +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors set up a unified growth model with intra-household bargaining of spouses, assuming that women desire to have no more children than men and to invest no less in education per child.
Journal ArticleDOI
Assessing the impact of the "one-child policy" in China: A synthetic control approach.
TL;DR: It is found that while the earlier, less restrictive ‘later-longer-fewer’ policy introduced in 1973 played a critical role in driving down the fertility rate, the role of the ‘one-child policy’ introduced in 1979 and its descendants was much less significant.
Journal ArticleDOI
Enclosing literacy? Common lands and human capital in Spain, 1860–1930
TL;DR: The authors showed that common lands positively contributed to achieving significantly higher levels of both schooling expenditure and literacy rates in Spain, by supporting both municipal and households' incomes, these collective resources sustained not only the local supply of education, but also the demand for it, although their influence decreased over time.