Three Revolutions of the Modern Era

Richard Easterlin

No 12435, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The emergence and evolution of modern science since the 17th century has led to three major breakthroughs in the human condition. The first, the Industrial Revolution, started in the late 18th century and is based chiefly on developments associated with the rise of the natural sciences. The second, the Demographic Revolution, began in the latter half of the 19th century and is largely the result of progress in the life sciences. The third is a Happiness Revolution that commenced in the late 20th century and is the outgrowth of the social sciences. The first two revolutions, both familiar concepts, are summarized briefly; this paper develops the rationale for the third, the Happiness Revolution. It also notes the implications of this perspective for the interpretation of international cross-section studies.

Keywords: happiness; Demographic Revolution; Industrial Revolution; Scientific Revolution; cross section (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 I31 N30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 13 pages
Date: 2019-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro, nep-hap, nep-his and nep-ore
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Comparative Economic Studies, 2019, 61 (4), 521–530

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp12435.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Three Revolutions of the Modern Era (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12435

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().