Interest in the study of economic growth has experienced remarkable fluctuation in the history of economics. This book presents and discusses different approaches to the issues of institutional and social dynamics of growth and distribution, with all their theoretical, empirical, historical and methodological implications. The relationship between growth and institutions is analysed from both historical and theoretical perspectives, political institutions and their interplay with growth and income distribution are explored, and demographics, social aspects and the role played by institutions such as family are also discussed in detail.
Introduction by Neri Salvadori
1 Institutions and the beginnings of economic growth in eighteenth-century Britain by Joel Mokyr 1
2 The coevolution of institutions and preferences: history and theory by Samuel Bowles 35
3 Politics and income distribution by Martin Baur 51
4 Income distribution and the interaction between cycles and growth by Piero Ferri and Anna Maria Variato 75
5 Market failures within poor institutions: the effects of bureaucrats' rent-seeking activity by Davide Infante and Janna Smirnova 93
6 Government spending, effective demand, distribution and growth: a dynamic analysis by Pasquale Commendatore and Carlo Panico and Antonio Pinto 116
7 The role of human capital in economic growth: evidence from Greek regions by Nikos Benos and Stelios Karagiannis 137
8 Adult longevity and economic take-off from Malthus to Ben-Porath by David de la Croix 169
9 Endogenous age structure in descriptive macroeconomic growth models: a general framework and some steady state analysis by Luciano Fanti and Mimmo Iannelli and Piero Manfredi 188
10 Bright and wealthy: exploring assortative mating by Valerio Filoso 216
11 Information networks and knowledge spillovers: simulations in an agent-based model framework by Christian Henning and Volker Saggau 251
12 Interaction between economic and social variables: the transformational growth matrix by Edward Nell 287
13 Financial fragility, mean-field interaction and macroeconomic dynamics: a stochastic model by Corrado Di Guilmi and Mauro Gallegati and Simone