In this study we investigate the causal impact of increasing adult longevity on higher education. We exploit the fourth stage of the epidemiological transition, i.e. the unexpected decline of deaths from heart attack and stroke in the 1970s as a large positive health shock that affected...

Evidence from economics, anthropology and biology testifies to a fundamental trade-off between the number of offspring (quantity) and amount of nutrition per child (quality). This leads to a theory of pre-industrial growth where body size as well as population size is endogenous. But when...

We investigate how social composition affects competitive and cooperative behavior in a linear growth model without a priori secure property rights. If a society is homogenous or highly fractionalized it is in the self-interest of people to cooperate. The first best allocation is enforced...

We develop a simple model of short- and long-term unemployment to study how labor market institutions interact with labor market conditions and personal characteristics of the unemployed. We analyze how the decision to exit unemployment and to mitigate human capital degradation by retraining...

This paper provides a unified growth theory, i.e. a model that explains the very long-run economic and demographic development path of industrialized economies, stretching from the pre-industrial era to present-day and beyond. Making strict use of Malthus’ (1798) so-called preventive check...

This paper investigates the interactive impact of subsistence consumption and child mortality on fertility choice and child expenditure. It offers an explanation for why mankind multiplies at higher rates at geographically unfavorable, tropical locations. In a macro-economic framework it...

This paper augments an R&D-based growth model of the third generation with human capital accumulation and impure altruism, calibrates it with U.S. data, and investigates whether the market provides too little or too much R&D. For benchmark parameters the market share of employment in R&D is...

This study provides a unified growth theory to correctly predict the initially negative and subsequently positive relationship between child mortality and net reproduction observed in industrialized countries over the course of their demographic transitions. The model captures the intricate...

The present study examines whether the Preston curve reflects a causal impact of income on longevity or, for example, factors correlated with both income and life expectancy. In order to understand the Preston curve better, we develop a model of optimal intertemporal consumption in which the...

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"...