Theories Flashcards
Ian Morris’ Index of Social Development
- ‘Urbanism’
- Consumption per person - measured in kilocalories per
day. - Information technology.
- Warmaking and the technology of warfare.
Williamson (1965)
Considers the “north-south problem” of various developed and developing countries
Regional inequality is very high in middle income countries and lower in high income countries
Theories of Income Disparities
Institutions: the rules according to which society is
organized
Culture: beliefs
Geography: climate, distance to the coast, etc
Challenges to identifying causes of growth
Omitted variables, Endogeneity
Example of omitted variables in growth explanation
Places with tropical climates may be different from temperate countries in many ways that
Example of endogeneity variables in growth explanation
Richer countries can afford better institutions, more prosperous citizens/businesses are better able to
control corruption
Theories on Human Differences from Apes
Intelligence, Cooperative Abilities, and Multiplicity of Instincts (language, tools, empathy, self-awareness)
Cultural Brain Hypothesis
cultural evolution drove (and
drives) genetic evolution
Individual learning
individuals are reasoning or
interacting alone with the world—trial and error
Social learning
broad category which includes cultural learning as a subcategory.
Cultural learning
involves observing and then
attempting to reconstruct (“copy”) the goals, strategies, motivations and motor patterns of others.
Prestige cues
Attention and gaze (watching)
Listening
Imitating
Hanging around (maintaining proximity)
ADH1B variant
Example of Natural Selection
cereal -> beer and wine
New variant metabolizes alcohol BETTER, but in the
process dumps large amounts of acetaldehyde into
the blood.
Causes a “flushing reaction”: dizziness, increased
heart rate, weakness, overheating and reddening
of the skin.
Massively reduces risk of heavy drinking and
alcoholism.
Ability to Drink Milk
Example of culturally created
selection pressures
Cultural evolution in dairying, where domesticated mammals like cows provided milk primarily for children under 5, leading to selection pressure for lactase persistence in adults.
Autocatalytic
those who were genetically better able at cultural learning did better
Consequence of Cultural Evolution
To fuel energy-intensive brain, we increased efficienty of food procurement (collecting vs. extracting) and reduced our guts:
Cooking externalizes digestion, and our digestive systems have
shrunk
IWe are not physically strong anymore, but are very good
runners and have great motor dexterity
Diamond’s Thesis
All humans were biologically similar in 11,000BC. So differences in emergence of settled societies must be due to environmental differences.
Evidence of Diamond’s Thesis
The Llama and Alpaca never spread to Mexico, and Mexican writing
never spread to South America.
European technologies did not disseminate south of the Sahara desert.
Proximate Causes
Variables that directly enter the
production function: physical and human capital, the
labor force, total factor productivity, raw materials, etc
Fundamental causes
reasons why human
capital is higher, the reasons why citizens have incentives to innovate, lie behind factor accumulation and
TFP growth
Types of Fundamental Explanations
- Institutions (humanly-devised rules shaping incentives)
- Geography (differences in environment and ecology)
- Culture (differences in beliefs)
- Chance
North and Thomas
Argued that economic growth comes naturally when
institutions provide incentives; the development of “efficient” institutions (those that encourage economic growth) is the central reason for the ‘Rise of the Western World’
Examples of the “Rise of the Western World” (North and Thomas)
(1) the invention of a
method for ships to tell their longitude; (2) pirates in
the Mediterranean; (3) the Mesta.
Theories of Industrial Revolution
Exploitation of oversees colonies (Williams, 1944)
Demography (Hajnal 1965) - cultural checks on fertility
Institutions (North 1973) - property rights, patent laws, etc.
Scientific Revolution (Mokyr, 1992) - i.e. the Scientific Method, Republic of Letters
