IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ide/wpaper/23850.html

Some searches may not work properly. We apologize for the inconvenience.

   My bibliography  Save this paper

Property Rights, Warfare and the Neolithic Transition

Author

Listed:
  • Rowthorn, Robert
  • Seabright, Paul

Abstract

This paper explains the multiple adoption of agriculture around ten thousand years ago, in spite of the fact that the first farmers suffered worse health and nutrition than their hunter gatherer predecessors. If output is harder for farmers to defend, adoption may entail increased defense investments, and equilibrium consumption levels may decline as agricultural productivity increases over a significant range, before eventually increasing thereafter. Agricultural adoption may have been a prisoners’ dilemma in that adoption was individually attractive even though all groups would have been better off committing not to adopt while the initial productivity advantage of agriculture remained low.

Suggested Citation

  • Rowthorn, Robert & Seabright, Paul, 2010. "Property Rights, Warfare and the Neolithic Transition," IDEI Working Papers 654, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    • Handle: RePEc:ide:wpaper:23850
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://idei.fr/sites/default/files/medias/doc/wp/2010/wp_idei_654.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthew Baker & Erwin Bulte & Jacob Weisdorf, 2006. "The Origins of Governments: From Amorphy to Anarchy and Hierarchy," Discussion Papers 06-25, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    2. Weisdorf, Jacob, 2009. "Why did the first farmers toil? Human metabolism and the origins of agriculture," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 157-172, August.
    3. Francisco M. Gonzalez, 2005. "Insecure Property and Technological Backwardness," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(505), pages 703-721, July.
    4. Guzmán, Ricardo Andrés & Weisdorf, Jacob, 2011. "The Neolithic Revolution from a price-theoretic perspective," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 209-219, November.
    5. Baker, Matthew & Bulte, Erwin & Weisdorf, Jacob, 2010. "The origins of governments: from anarchy to hierarchy," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(2), pages 215-242, June.
    6. Gonzalez, Francisco M. & Neary, Hugh M., 2008. "Prosperity without conflict," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 2170-2181, October.
    7. Jacob L. Weisdorf, 2005. "From Foraging To Farming: Explaining The Neolithic Revolution," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 561-586, September.
    8. Sung Ha Hwang, 2009. "Contest Success Functions: Theory and Evidence," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2009-04, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    9. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    10. Jack Hirshleifer, 1989. "Conflict and rent-seeking success functions: Ratio vs. difference models of relative success," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 251-262, Springer.
    11. Arthur J. Robson, 2010. "A bioeconomic view of the Neolithic transition to agriculture," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 43(1), pages 280-300, February.
    12. Herschel I. Grossman, 1998. "Producers and Predators," Working Papers 98-6, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    13. Toke Skovsgaard Aidt, 2002. "Strategic Political Participation and Redistribution," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 19-40.
    14. Nitzan, Shmuel, 1994. "Modelling rent-seeking contests," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 41-60, May.
    15. Gary S. Becker, 1983. "A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(3), pages 371-400.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. A neolithic prisonner's dilemma
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2011-02-02 21:05:00

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Levine, David K. & Modica, Salvatore, 2013. "Anti-Malthus: Conflict and the evolution of societies," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(4), pages 289-306.
    2. Rohan Dutta & David K. Levine & Nicholas W. Papageorge & Lemin Wu, 2018. "Entertaining Malthus: Bread, Circuses, And Economic Growth," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 358-380, January.
    3. Svizzero, Serge & Tisdell, Clem, 2014. "Inequality and Wealth Creation in Ancient History: Malthus' Theory Reconsidered," Economic Theory, Applications and Issues Working Papers 183285, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    4. Quamrul Ashraf & Stelios Michalopoulos, 2015. "Climatic Fluctuations and the Diffusion of Agriculture," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(3), pages 589-609, July.
    5. Serge Svizzero, 2015. "Farmers' spatial behaviour, demographic density dependence and the spread of Neolithic agriculture in Central Europe," Post-Print hal-02150100, HAL.
    6. David K. Levine & Salvatore Modica, 2012. "Conflict and the evolution of societies," Working Papers 2012-032, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    7. David K Levine & Salvatore Modica, 2016. "An Evolutionary Model of Intervention and Peace," Levine's Bibliography 786969000000001391, UCLA Department of Economics.
    8. Dow, Gregory K. & Mitchell, Leanna & Reed, Clyde G., 2017. "The economics of early warfare over land," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 297-305.
    9. David K. Levine & Salvatore Modica, 2013. "Conflict, evolution, hegemony, and the power of the state," Working Papers 2013-023, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    10. Matranga, Andrea, 2017. "The Ant and the Grasshopper: Seasonality and the Invention of Agriculture," MPRA Paper 76626, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Aldo Rustichini, 2023. "Economics with a biological foundation," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 1-40, June.
    12. Quamrul Ashraf & Stelios Michalopoulos, 2013. "Climatic Fluctuations and the Di§usion of Agriculture," Working Papers 2013-3, Brown University, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Seabright, Paul, 2008. "Warfare and the Multiple Adoption of Agriculture After the Last Ice Age," IDEI Working Papers 522, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    2. Serge Svizzero, 2014. "Pre-Neolithic Economy," Post-Print hal-02152612, HAL.
    3. Quamrul Ashraf & Stelios Michalopoulos, 2015. "Climatic Fluctuations and the Diffusion of Agriculture," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(3), pages 589-609, July.
    4. Alexander M. Yarkin, 2014. "Endogenous Property Rights, Conflict Intensity And Inequality In Asymmetric Rent-Seeking Contest," HSE Working papers WP BRP 72/EC/2014, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    5. Jia, Hao & Skaperdas, Stergios & Vaidya, Samarth, 2013. "Contest functions: Theoretical foundations and issues in estimation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 211-222.
    6. Gonzalez, Francisco M., 2007. "Effective property rights, conflict and growth," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 127-139, November.
    7. Anil Yildizparlak, 2018. "An Application of Contest Success Functions for Draws on European Soccer," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(8), pages 1191-1212, December.
    8. Farhad Nili & Gabriel Talmain, "undated". "Rent-seeking, Occupational Choice and Oil Boom," Discussion Papers 01/11, Department of Economics, University of York.
    9. André Palma & Soumyanetra Munshi, 2019. "Multi-player, Multi-prize, Imperfectly Discriminating Contests," Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 593-632, June.
    10. Luis Corchón, 2007. "The theory of contests: a survey," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 11(2), pages 69-100, September.
    11. Garfinkel, Michelle R. & Skaperdas, Stergios, 2007. "Economics of Conflict: An Overview," Handbook of Defense Economics, in: Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), Handbook of Defense Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 649-709, Elsevier.
    12. Vahabi,Mehrdad, 2019. "The Political Economy of Predation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107591370, November.
    13. Aidt, Toke Skovsgaard, 2003. "Redistribution and deadweight cost: the role of political competition," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 205-226, June.
    14. Guzmán, Ricardo Andrés & Weisdorf, Jacob, 2011. "The Neolithic Revolution from a price-theoretic perspective," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 209-219, November.
    15. Fernando del Río, 2021. "The impact of rent seeking on social infrastructure and productivity," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 1741-1760, August.
    16. de Miguel-Arribas, A. & Morón-Vidal, J. & Floría, L.M. & Gracia-Lázaro, C. & Hernández, L. & Moreno, Y., 2024. "Contests in two fronts," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    17. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Levine, Ross, 2006. "Bank supervision and corruption in lending," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 2131-2163, November.
    18. Gil S Epstein, 2012. "Employer’s information and promotion-seeking activities," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 1(4), pages 21-32.
    19. Gil Epstein & Ira Gang, 2007. "Who Is The Enemy?," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(6), pages 469-484.
    20. Efraim Benmelech & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 2010. "The Political Economy of Financial Regulation: Evidence from U.S. State Usury Laws in the 19th Century," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(3), pages 1029-1073, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    agriculture; defense; property rights; contest functions; Neolithic transition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • N30 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • N40 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • Q10 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Economic Logic blog

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ide:wpaper:23850. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/idtlsfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.