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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Dalgaard, Carl-Johan; Strulik, Holger |
| Abstract: | It is a well known fact that economic development and distance to the equator are positively correlated variables in the world today. It is perhaps less well known that as recently as 1500 C.E. it was the other way around. The present paper provides a theory of why the "latitude gradient" seemingly changed sign in the course of the last half millennium. In particular, we develop a dynamic model of economic and physiological development in which households decide upon the number and nutrition of their offspring. In this setting we demonstrate that relatively high metabolic costs of fertility, which may have emerged due to positive selection towards greater cold tolerance in locations away from the equator, would work to stifle economic development during pre-industrial times, yet allow for an early onset of sustained growth. As a result, the theory suggests a reversal of fortune whereby economic activity gradually shifts away from the equator in the process of long-term economic development. |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13119&r=evo |
| By: | Anja Prummer (Queen Mary University of London); Jan-Peter Siedlarek (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) |
| Abstract: | We explain persistent differences in cultural traits of immigrant groups with the presence of community leaders. Leaders influence the cultural traits of their community, which have an impact on the group's earnings. They determine whether a community will be more assimilated and wealthier or less assimilated and poorer. With a leader cultural integration remains incomplete. The leader chooses more distinctive cultural traits in high productivity environments and if the community is more connected. Lump sum transfers to immigrants can hinder cultural integration. These findings are in line with integration patterns of various ethnic and religious groups. |
| Keywords: | Cultural transmission, Leadership, Immigrants, Labor market outcomes, Social influence, Networks |
| JEL: | J15 Z10 D02 |
| Date: | 2016–12–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:806&r=evo |
| By: | John B. Davis (Department of Economics Marquette University) |
| Abstract: | This chapter examines the nature of ethics and economics as a single subject of investigation, and uses a complex systems approach to characterize the nature of that subject. It then distinguishes mainstream economic and social economic visions of it, where the former assumes that market processes encompass social processes, and the latter assumes that market processes are embedded in social processes. For each vision, string and weak theses are compared. Both visions are first explained in terms of their respective views of the positive-normative distinction, then in terms of a central normative principle, and then in terms of their policy strategies. The chapter closes with comments on the future status of ethics and economics as a single subject of investigation. |
| Keywords: | ethics and economics, complex systems, mainstream economics, social economics, positive-normative distinction, efficiency, externalities, cost-benefit, capabilities, 'off limits,' 'taming the market' |
| JEL: | A12 A13 B41 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrq:wpaper:2018-01&r=evo |