The Neolithic Revolution from a price-theoretic perspective

Guzmán, Ricardo Andrés (2008): The Neolithic Revolution from a price-theoretic perspective.

Abstract

The adoption of agriculture, some 10,000 years ago, triggered the first demographic explosion in human history. When fertility fell back to its original level, early farmers found themselves worse fed than the previous hunter-gatherers, and worked longer hours to make ends meet. I develop a dynamic, price-theoretic model with endogenous fertility that rationalises these events. The results are driven by the reduction in the cost of children that followed the adoption of agriculture.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Paleoeconomics; Neolithic Revolution; hunter-gatherers; Malthus
• Subjects: Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology; N - Economic History > N5 - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment, and Extractive Industries

References

Armelagos, G. J., Goodman, A. H. and Jacobs., K. H. (1991). `The origins of agriculture: population growth during a period of declining health', Population and Environment, vol. 13, pp. 9-22.

Bocquet-Appel, J. P. (2002). `Paleoanthropological traces of a Neolithic demographic transition', Current Anthropology, vol. 43, pp. 637-50.

Boldrin, M. and Jones, L. E. (2002). `Mortality, fertility, and saving in a Malthusian economy', Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 5, pp. 775-814.

Cashdan, E. A. (1985). `Natural fertility, birth spacing, and the first demographic transition', American Anthropologist, vol. 87, pp. 650-53.

Cohen, M. N. and Armelagos, G. J. (1984). `Paleopathology at the origins of agriculture', in (M. N. Cohen and G. J. Armelagos, eds.), Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture, pp. 585-602, Orlando, FL: Academic Press.

Douglas, M. (1966). `Population control in primitive groups', The British Journal of Sociology, vol. 17, pp. 263-73.

Eckstein, Z., Stern, S. and Wolpin, K. I. (1988). `Fertility choice, land, and the Malthusian hypothesis', International Economic Review, vol. 29, pp. 353-61.

Johnson, A. W. and Earle, T. K. (2000). The Evolution of Human Societies: From Foraging Group to Agrarian State, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Kramer, K. L. and Boone, J. L. (2002). `Why intensive agriculturalists have higher fertility: a household energy budget approach', Current Anthropology, vol. 43, pp. 511-17.

Marceau, N. and Myers, G. (2006). `On the early Holocene: foraging to early agriculture', The Economic Journal, vol. 116, pp. 751-72.

Nerlove, M., Razin, A. and Sadka, E. (1986). `Endogenous population with public goods and Malthusian fixed resources: efficiency or market failure', International Economic Review, vol. 27, pp. 601-9.

Price, T. D. and Gebauer, A. (1995). `New perspectives on the transition to agriculture', in (T. D. Price and A. Gebauer, eds.), Last Hunters, First Farmers: New Perspectives on the Prehistoric Transition to Agriculture, pp. 132-39, Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.

Razin, A. and Ben-Zion, U. (1975). `An intergenerational model of population growth', American Economic Review, vol. 65, pp. 923-33.

Robson, A. J. (2008). `A bioeconomic view of the Neolithic transition', Simon Fraser University, mimeo.

Sackett, R. D. F. (1996). Time, Energy, and the Indolent Savage: A Quantitative Cross-Cultural Test of the Primitive Affluence Hypothesis, Department of Anthropology, UCLA, PhD dissertation.

Weisdorf, J. L. (2003). `Stone Age economics: the origins of agriculture and the emergence of non-food specialists', University of Copenhagen Discussion Paper 03-34.

Weisdorf, J. L. (2005). `From foraging to farming: explaining the Neolithic Revolution', Journal of Economic Surveys, vol. 116, pp. 561-86.

Weisdorf, J. L. (2008). `Why did the first farmers toil?', European Review of Economic History, forthcoming.