Hibbs Douglas A, Olsson Ola
Department of Economics, Göteborg University, Box 640, 40530 Göteborg, Sweden.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 Mar 9;101(10):3715-20. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0305531101. Epub 2004 Feb 25.
The most important event in human economic history before the industrial revolution was the Neolithic transition from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to sedentary agriculture, beginning approximately 10,000 years ago. The transition made possible the human population explosion, the rise of non-food-producing specialists, and the acceleration of technological progress that led eventually to the industrial revolution. But the transition occurred at different times in different regions of the world, with big consequences for the present-day economic conditions of populations indigenous to each region. In this article, we show that differences in biogeographic initial conditions and in geography largely account for the different timings of the Neolithic transition and, thereby, ultimately help account for the 100-fold differences among the prosperity of nations today. The effects of biogeography and geography on the wealth of nations are partly mediated by the quality of present-day institutions but also are partly independent of institutional quality.
工业革命之前人类经济史上最重要的事件是新石器时代从游牧狩猎采集生活方式向定居农业的转变，大约始于一万年前。这一转变使得人口爆炸、非粮食生产专家的兴起以及技术进步加速成为可能，而技术进步最终导致了工业革命。但这一转变在世界不同地区发生的时间不同，对各地区原住民目前的经济状况产生了重大影响。在本文中，我们表明生物地理初始条件和地理环境的差异在很大程度上解释了新石器时代转变的不同时间，从而最终有助于解释当今各国繁荣程度相差百倍的原因。生物地理学和地理环境对国家财富的影响部分是通过当今制度的质量来调节的，但也部分独立于制度质量。
