IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4638.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic Growth, Population Theory, and Physiology: The Bearing of Long-Term Processes on the Making of Economic Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Robert W. Fogel

Abstract

This paper sketches a theory of the secular decline in morbidity and mortality that takes account of changes in human physiology since 1700. The synergism between technological and physiological improvements has produced a form of human evolution, much more rapid than natural selection, which is still ongoing in both OECD and developing countries. Thermodynamic and physiological aspects of economic growth are defined and their impact on growth rates is assessed. Implications of this theory for population forecasting, measurement of national income, demand for leisure, pension policies, and for the demand for health care are considered.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert W. Fogel, 1994. "Economic Growth, Population Theory, and Physiology: The Bearing of Long-Term Processes on the Making of Economic Policy," NBER Working Papers 4638, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4638
    Note: DAE EFG EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4638.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Seckler, David, 1980. ""Malnutrition": An Intellectual Odyssey," Western Journal of Agricultural Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 5(2), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Atack, Jeremy & Bateman, Fred, 1992. "How Long Was the Workday in 1880?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(1), pages 129-160, March.
    3. Eckstein, Zvi & Schultz, T. Paul & Wolpin, Kenneth I., 1984. "Short-run fluctuations in fertility and mortality in pre-industrial Sweden," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 295-317, December.
    4. Kuznets, Simon, 1941. "Statistics and Economic History1," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 26-41, May.
    5. Wolfe, Barbara L., 1986. "Health status and medical expenditures: Is there a link?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 22(10), pages 993-999, January.
    6. Robert W. Fogel, 1986. "Nutrition and the Decline in Mortality since 1700: Some Preliminary Findings," NBER Chapters, in: Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth, pages 439-556, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Costa, Dora L., 1995. "Health, Income, and Retirement: Evidence from Nineteenth-Century America," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(2), pages 374-375, June.
    8. Murphy, Kevin M & Welch, Finis, 1990. "Empirical Age-Earnings Profiles," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(2), pages 202-229, April.
    9. Freudenberger, Herman & Cummins, Gaylord, 1976. "Health, work, and leisure before the industrial revolution," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, January.
    10. Weir, David R., 1993. "Parental Consumption Decisions and Child Health During the Early French Fertility Decline, 1790–1914," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(2), pages 259-274, June.
    11. Joseph P. Newhouse, 1992. "Medical Care Costs: How Much Welfare Loss?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 3-21, Summer.
    12. Manton, Kenneth G. & Stallard, Eric & Singer, Burt, 1992. "Projecting the future size and health status of the US elderly population," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 433-458, November.
    13. West, Patrick & Macintyre, Sally & Annandale, Ellen & Hunt, Kate, 1990. "Social class and health in youth: Findings from the west of Scotland twenty-07 study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 665-673, January.
    14. Shammas, Carole, 1984. "The eighteenth-century English diet and economic change," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 254-269, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Oliver Fritz & Peter Mayerhofer & Reinhard Haller & Gerhard Streicher & Florian Bachner & Herwig Ostermann, 2013. "Die regionalwirtschaftlichen Effekte der österreichischen Krankenanstalten," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 46672, April.
    2. José L. Martínez González, 2019. "High Wages or Wages For Energy? An Alternative View of The British Case (1645-1700)," Working Papers 0158, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    3. Tomoki Fujii, 2018. "Sources of health financing and health outcomes: A panel data analysis," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(12), pages 1996-2015, December.
    4. Jack, William & Lewis, Maureen, 2009. "Health investments and economic growth : macroeconomic evidence and microeconomic foundations," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4877, The World Bank.
    5. Yamaguchi, Shintaro, 2010. "The effect of match quality and specific experience on career decisions and wage growth," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 407-423, April.
    6. Stefan Schiman, 2013. "Langfristige Perspektiven der öffentlichen Finanzen in Österreich. Projektionen des Staatshaushalts bis 2050," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 46670, April.
    7. Kurt Hornschild & Stephan Raab & Jörg-Peter Weiß, 2005. "Die Medizintechnik am Standort Deutschland: Chancen und Risiken durch technologische Innovationen, Auswirkungen auf und durch das nationale Gesundheitssystem sowie potentielle Wachstumsmärkte im Ausla," DIW Berlin: Politikberatung kompakt, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, edition 2, volume 10, number pbk10, January.
    8. Sebastian Stolorz, 2005. "A Test of the Signalling Hypothesis - Evidence from Natural Experiment," Labor and Demography 0512008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Daron Acemoglu & Amy Finkelstein, 2008. "Input and Technology Choices in Regulated Industries: Evidence from the Health Care Sector," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(5), pages 837-880, October.
    10. Wasem, Jurgen, 1997. "A study on decentralizing from acute care to home care settings in Germany," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(Supplemen), pages 109-129, September.
    11. Komlos, John, 2012. "A Three-Decade “Kuhnian” History of the Antebellum Puzzle: Explaining the shrinking of the US population at the onset of modern economic growth," Discussion Papers in Economics 12758, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    12. Fabio Pammolli & Francesco Porcelli & Francesco Vidoli & Monica Auteri & Guido Borà, 2017. "La spesa sanitaria delle Regioni in Italia - Saniregio2017," Working Papers CERM 01-2017, Competitività, Regole, Mercati (CERM).
    13. John B. Burbidge & Kirk A. Collins & James B. Davies & Lonnie Magee, 2012. "Effective tax and subsidy rates on human capital in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 45(1), pages 189-219, February.
    14. Domenico Ferraro & Giuseppe Fiori, 2020. "The Aging of the Baby Boomers: Demographics and Propagation of Tax Shocks," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 167-193, April.
    15. Arthur Charpentier & Emmanuel Flachaire & Antoine Ly, 2017. "Econom\'etrie et Machine Learning," Papers 1708.06992, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2018.
    16. Alan de Brauw & John Giles, 2017. "Migrant Opportunity and the Educational Attainment of Youth in Rural China," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(1), pages 272-311.
    17. Elek, Péter & Bíró, Anikó, 2021. "Regional differences in diabetes across Europe – regression and causal forest analyses," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    18. Felipa de Mello-Sampayo & Sofia de Sousa-Vale, 2014. "Financing Health Care Expenditure in the OECD Countries: Evidence from a Heterogeneous, Cross-Sectional Dependent Panel," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 61(2), pages 207-225, March.
    19. Mengistae, Taye, 1999. "The relative effects of skill formation and job matching on wage growth in Ethiopia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2104, The World Bank.
    20. Strulik, Holger, 2018. "The return to education in terms of wealth and health," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 1-14.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N00 - Economic History - - General - - - General

    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:nbr:nberwo:4638. 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/nberrus.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.