Document de travail

Property Rights, Warfare and the Neolithic Transition

Robert Rowthorn et Paul Seabright

Résumé

This paper explains the multiple adoption of agriculture around ten thousand years ago, in spite of the fact that the first farmers suffered worse health and nutrition than their hunter gatherer predecessors. If output is harder for farmers to defend, adoption may entail increased defense investments, and equilibrium consumption levels may decline as agricultural productivity increases over a significant range, before eventually increasing thereafter. Agricultural adoption may have been a prisoners’ dilemma in that adoption was individually attractive even though all groups would have been better off committing not to adopt while the initial productivity advantage of agriculture remained low.

Mots-clés

agriculture; defense; property rights; contest functions; Neolithic transition;

Codes JEL

  • D74: Conflict • Conflict Resolution • Alliances
  • N30: General, International, or Comparative
  • N40: General, International, or Comparative
  • O12: Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
  • O40: General
  • Q10: General

Référence

Robert Rowthorn et Paul Seabright, « Property Rights, Warfare and the Neolithic Transition », TSE Working Paper, n° 10-207, novembre 2010.

Voir aussi

Publié dans

TSE Working Paper, n° 10-207, novembre 2010