Abstract
We investigate, both theoretically and quantitatively, a previously unexplored link between gains in adult mortality and productivity growth. Our mechanism allocates a central role to individuals as carriers of useful ideas and to personal contact as an important means of transferring these ideas. It thus implies that disrupting a human life impedes the process of knowledge transmission across time. We derive a simple and intuitive form of the dependence of aggregate knowledge transfer on adult mortality and incorporate it into a model of endogenous growth. We then quantitatively examine the relevance of the proposed link in application to the long-run growth experience of England. Our calibration exercise suggests that the reduction in adult mortality, by improving knowledge transmission across time and encouraging more innovation, was a quantitatively important force behind the takeoff in output per capita.
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Bar, M., Leukhina, O. The role of mortality in the transmission of knowledge. J Econ Growth 15, 291–321 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10887-010-9059-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10887-010-9059-5
Keywords
- Economic growth
- Total factor productivity
- Adult mortality
- Longevity
- Knowledge transmission
- Ideas
- Human capital