Nils-Petter Lagerlöf

Gender Equality and Long-Run Growth

This research suggests that long-run economic and demographic development in Europe can be better understood when related to long-term trends in gender equality, dating back to the spread of Christianity. We set up a growth model where gaps in female-to-male human capital arise at equilibrium through a coordination process. An economy which over a long stretch of time re-coordinates on continuously more equal equilibria—as one could argue happened in Europe—exhibits growth patterns qualitatively similar to that of Europe.

Ethnic Diversity, Civil War and Redistribution

In a game-theoretic framework, we analyse the circumstances under which self-enforcing redistribution and power-sharing coalitions can be used to peacefully resolve ethnic conflict. The existence of a pacific equilibrium depends crucially on ethnic diversity (the number of ethnic groups). The risk of civil war is comparatively high at intermediate levels of ethnic diversity. The risk is low if a society is either very homogeneous or very diverse. Predictions of the model are consistent with evidence on the incidence of civil war.

Malthus in Sweden

This paper presents some new and unique cross-county data from 19th-century Sweden over birth, death, and marriage rates, grain prices, and harvests. Local grain prices correlate negatively with local harvests, suggesting imperfectly integrated food markets. The so-called positive and preventive checks are also present: good local harvests are associated with high birth and marriage rates, and low death rates. We also find that the fertility and marriage effects from changes in prices – but not harvests – are greater in counties that rely more on manufacturing, consistent with an open-economy model of fertility choice, where agents earn income from both agriculture and manufacturing.

From rent seeking to human capital: a model where resource shocks cause transitions from stagnation to growth

We present a growth model where agents divide time between rent seeking in the form of resource competition and working in a human capital sector. The latter is interpreted as trade or manufacturing. Rent seeking exerts negative externalities on the productivity of human capital. Adding shocks, in the form of fluctuations in the size of the contested resource, the model can replicate a long phase with stagnant incomes and high levels of rent seeking, interrupted by small, failed growth spurts, eventually followed by a permanent transition to a sustained growth path where rent seeking vanishes in the limit. The model also generates a rise and fall of the so-called natural resource curse: before the takeoff, an increase in the size of the contested resource has a positive effect on incomes; shortly after the takeoff, the effect is negative; and on the balanced growth path the growth rate of per capita income is independent of resource shocks.

Polygyny and Its Discontents: Paternal Age and Human Capital Accumulation

In polygyny, the fact that some men take several wives deprives others. This crowding-out has a distinct age dimension: the remarrying men are older. In monogamy, on the other hand, men marry once and, under reasonable assumptions, when young. We study the implications of this age-heterogeneity in a two-sex overlapping generations model, where agents live for two adult periods. Men are fecund in both periods while women only in the first one. We model restrictions on polygyny as a restriction on resources that old men can devote to a new family. Such restrictions result in more women choosing young, i.e., previously unmarried, men. If young men respond to their enhanced familial role by reallocating time from leisure activities to the raising of offspring, then steady-state human capital is boosted. le93@columbia.edu lagerlof@econ.yorku.ca

A Dynamic Theory of Competence, Loyalty and Stability in Dictatorships

This paper presents a dynamic model of power competition in a nondemocracy. In each period, a ruler from an incumbent dynasty is challenged. If he survives, he hands over power to a (biological or ideological) offspring. He can control his offsprings chances of surviving future threats, by choosing how competent and loyal administrators to hire, and how many. The society can stay for a long time on a volatile path where subsequent dynasties of rulers regularly replace one another, each purging the preceding dynastys competent administrators, replacing them with loyalists, thus keeping competence bouncing around a low level. This may be followed by an endogenous transition to a path without such purges and a simultaneous rise in competence.

UNDERSTANDING PER-CAPITA INCOME GROWTH IN PREINDUSTRIAL EUROPE: GROWTH IN PREINDUSTRIAL EUROPE

In a Malthusian environment, per‐capita incomes are stagnant, meaning they cannot exhibit sustained growth. However, they can still display volatility and persistence when hit by shocks. This article simulates a Malthusian model with realistic life‐cycle structure and stochastic and accelerating growth in land productivity. We find that differences across simulated economies are quantitatively similar to those found in recently compiled data over GDP per capita for several European countries before 1800. This speaks to the relevance of the Malthusian model for understanding preindustrial development in Europe, contrasting with contentions to the contrary in some of the existing literature.