We explore the hypothesis that demographic changes started in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are the root of the acceleration in growth rates at the dawn of the modern age. During this period, life tables for Geneva and Venice show a decline in adult mortality; French marriage registers show an important increase in literacy; historians measure an acceleration of economic growth. We develop an endogenous growth model with a realistic survival law in which rising longevity increases the individual incentive to invest in education and foster growth. We quantitatively estimate that the observed improvements in adult mortality account for 70% of the growth acceleration in the pre-industrial age.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE) in its series CORE Discussion Papers with number
2002030.
Find related papers by JEL classification: O41 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth - - - Europe: Pre-1913
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Gary D. Hansen & Edward C. Prescott, 1998.
"Malthus to Solow,"
NBER Working Papers
6858, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Gary D. Hansen & Edward C. Prescott, 1999.
"Malthus to Solow,"
Staff Report
257, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
[Downloadable!]
Gary D. Hansen & Edward C. Prescott, 2002.
"Malthus to Solow,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1205-1217, September.
[Downloadable!]
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.) This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.