Social Interactions and Modern Economic Growth

This paper offers a theoretical framework to understand the coevolution of social interactions and long-term economic growth. It begins by considering that most traditional societies did not have educational markets. Thus, access to the required knowledge for transiting to a modern economy had to be...

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Autores:
Mejía, Javier
Tipo de recurso:
Work document
Fecha de publicación:
2018
Institución:
Universidad de los Andes
Repositorio:
Séneca: repositorio Uniandes
Idioma:
spa
OAI Identifier:
oai:repositorio.uniandes.edu.co:1992/41030
Acceso en línea:
http://hdl.handle.net/1992/41030
Palabra clave:
Modern economic growth
Social interactions
knowledge transmission
Diversity
Industrialization
Structural change
D85, J13, O11, O14, O33, O41
Rights
openAccess
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Description
Summary:This paper offers a theoretical framework to understand the coevolution of social interactions and long-term economic growth. It begins by considering that most traditional societies did not have educational markets. Thus, access to the required knowledge for transiting to a modern economy had to be transmitted through social interactions, in particular, through the interaction between heterogeneous groups of people¿i.e. distant interactions. Once immersed in a modern economy, the productive system should have increased the demand for knowledge, promoting more distant interactions. Simultaneously, the emergence of distant interactions should have affected the connectivity of society, reducing its heterogeneity, making cheaper posterior interactions but reducing their profitability. Moreover, social interactions competed and benefited from other nonmarket activities, child rearing specifically. The model arrives at four basic predictions.