Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/73127 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
Diskussionsbeitrag No. 480
Publisher: 
Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät, Hannover
Abstract: 
In the present paper we advance a theory of pre-industrial growth where body size and population size are endogenously determined. Despite the fact that parents invest in both child quantity and productivity enhancing child quality, a take-off does not occur due to a key physiological check: if human body size rises, subsistence requirements will increase. This mechanism turns out to be instrumental in explaining why income stagnates near an endogenously determined subsistence boundary. Key predictions of the model are supported by cross-country data.
Subjects: 
stagnation
Subsistence
Nutrition
Body size
Population growth
JEL: 
O11
I12
J13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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