The Origins of Modern Growth: Fertility and Human Capital in England, 1500-1914
Decorre dia 11 de Novembro pelas 17:30 na Sala de Aulas 3 (piso 0) do ICS o Seminário de História com o tema The Origins of Modern Growth: Fertility and Human Capital in England, 1500-1914 por Gregory Clark (Joint with Neil Cummins, CUNY Queens)
Abstract
Recent theories of the origins of modern growth stress an improvement in human capital through reduced fertility and more intensive investment in the nurturing and education of children. But it is hard to directly test the proposition that reducing family sizes improves the "quality" of children in the modern world. What tests have been done have produced few positive signs of an association. Using the information from the wills of a large collection of fathers and sons in England 1500-1914, and the unusual nature of the demographic regime in place for most of this period, we are able to measure directly the connection between numbers of surviving children and the economic fortunes of children. There is a tradeoff between quality and quantity, but only before the Industrial Revolution. After 1800 larger family sizes have little influence on the fortunes of sons. Fertility declines cannot explain the emergence of modern growth.
Gregory Clark é doutorado por Harvard e actualmente lecciona e dirige o Departamento de Economia da Universidade da Califórnia - Davis.
Áreas de Investigação: crescimento económico na longa duração; riqueza das nações; e história económica da Inglaterra e da Índia.
Principais Publicações:
A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, Princeton University Press, 2007.
"The Long March of History: Farm Wages, Population and Economic Growth, England 1209-1869", Economic History Review, 60 (1) (February, 2007): 97-136.
"What made Britannia great? How much of the rise of Britain to world dominance by 1850 does the Industrial Revolution explain?" In Tim Hatton, Kevin O'Rourke, and Alan Taylor (eds.), Comparative Economic History: Essays in honor of Jeffrey Williamson, pp. 33-57. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007.
"The Condition of the Working-Class in England, 1209-2004", Journal of Political Economy, 113 (6) (December, 2005): 1307-1340.
"Human Capital, Fertility and the Industrial Revolution" Journal of the European Economic Association, 3 (2-3) (2005): 505-515.
