The Evolution of Human Life Expectancy and Intelligence in Hunter-Gatherer Economies

Arthur Robson and Hillard Kaplan

American Economic Review, 2003, vol. 93, issue 1, 150-169

Abstract: The economics of hunting and gathering must have driven the biological evolution of human characteristics, since hunter-gatherer societies prevailed for the two million years of human history. These societies feature huge intergenerational resource flows, suggesting that these resource flows should replace fertility as the key demographic consideration. It is then theoretically expected that life expectancy and brain size would increase simultaneously, as apparently occurred during our evolutionary history. The brain here is considered as a direct form of bodily investment, but also crucially as facilitating further indirect investment by means of learning-by-doing.

Date: 2003
Note: DOI: 10.1257/000282803321455205
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (73)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/000282803321455205 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
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:aea:aecrev:v:93:y:2003:i:1:p:150-169

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().