The Ancient Origins of the Wealth of Nations

Quamrul Ashraf, Oded Galor and Marc Klemp

No 8624, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: This essay explores the deepest roots of economic development. It underscores the significance of evolutionary processes in shaping fundamental individual and cultural traits, such as time preference, risk and loss aversion, and predisposition towards child quality, that have contributed to technological progress, human-capital formation, and economic development. Moreover, it highlights the persistent mark of the exodus of Homo sapiens from Africa tens of thousands of years ago on the degree of interpersonal population diversity across the globe and examines the impact of this variation in diversity for comparative economic, cultural, and institutional development across countries, regions, and ethnic groups.

Keywords: comparative development; human evolution; natural selection; preference for child quality; time preference; loss aversion; entrepreneurial spirit; the “out of Africa” hypothesis; interpersonal diversity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N10 N30 O11 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-evo, nep-gro, nep-his and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Ancient Origins of the Wealth of Nations (2020)
Working Paper: The Ancient Origins of the Wealth of Nations (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8624

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