The Reluctant Economist: Perspectives on Economics, Economic History, and Demography

by Richard A. Easterlin

• ISBN13: 9780521685115
• ISBN10: 0521685117
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-02-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Where is rapid economic growth taking us? Why has its spread throughout the world been so limited? What are the causes of the great twentieth century advance in life expectancy? Of the revolution in childbearing that is bringing fertility worldwide to near replacement levels? Have free markets been the source of human improvement? Economics provides a start on these questions, but only a start, argues economist Richard A. Easterlin. To answer them calls for merging economics with concepts and data from other social sciences, and with quantitative and qualitative history. Easterlin demonstrates this approach in seeking answers to these and other questions about world or American experience in the last two centuries, drawing on economics, demography, sociology, history, and psychology. The opening chapter gives an autobiographical account of the evolution of this approach, and why Easterlin is a 'reluctant economist'.

Author Biography

Richard A. Easterlin is University Professor and Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures	ix
Preface	xiii
Acknowledgments	xix
PART ONE. ECONOMICS
The Reluctant Economist	3	(18)
Economics and the Use of Subjective Testimony	21	(11)
Is Economic Growth Creating a New Postmaterialistic Society?	32	(25)
PART TWO. ECONOMIC HISTORY
Why Isn't the Whole World Developed?	57	(17)
Kuznets Cycles and Modern Economic Growth	74	(10)
Industrial Revolution and Mortality Revolution: Two of a Kind?	84	(17)
How Beneficent Is the Market? A Look at the Modern History of Mortality	101	(40)
PART THREE. DEMOGRAPHY
An Economic Framework for Fertility Analysis	141	(25)
New Perspectives on the Demographic Transition	166	(18)
Does Human Fertility Adjust to the Environment? Population Change and Farm Settlement in the Northern United States	184	(21)
America's Baby Boom and Bust, 1940--1980: Causes and Consequences	205	(14)
Preferences and Prices in Choice of Career: The Switch to Business	219	(28)
Epilogue	247	(4)
Bibliography	251	(28)
Index	279