This research develops an evolutionary growth theory that captures the interplay between the evolution of mankind and economic growth since the emergence of the human species. This uni…ed theory encompasses the observed evolution of population, technology and income per capita in the long transition from an epoch of Malthusian stagnation to sustained economic growth. The theory suggests that prolonged economic stagnation prior to the transition to sustained growth stimulated natural selection that shaped the evolution of the human species, whereas the evolution of the human species was the origin of the take-o¤ from an epoch of stagnation to sustained growth.

This paper develops a growth model characterized by ability-biased technological transition in which the evolution of technology, education attainment, and wage inequality is consistent with the observed pattern in the United States and other advanced countries over the past several decades. It argues that an increase in the rate of technological progress raises the return to ability and simultaneously generates an increase in wage inequality between and within groups of skilled and unskilled workers, an increase in average wages of skilled workers, a temporary decline in average wages of unskilled workers, an increase in education, and a productivity transitory slowdown.2.

This paper suggests that inequality in the distribution of landownership adversely affected the emergence of human-capital promoting institutions (e.g. public schooling), and thus the pace and the nature of the transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy, contributing to the emergence of the great divergence in income per capita across countries. The prediction of the theory regarding the adverse effect of the concentration of landownership on education expenditure is established empirically based on evidence from the beginning of the 20th century in the U.S.

This paper develops a growth theory that captures the replacement of physical capital accumulation by human capital accumulation as a prime engine of growth along the process of development. It argues that the positive impact of inequality on the growth process was reversed in this process. In early stages of the Industrial Revolution, when physical capital accumulation was the prime source of growth, inequality stimulated development by channelling resources towards individuals with a higher propensity to save. As human capital emerged as a growth engine, equality alleviated adverse effects of credit constraints on human capital accumulation, stimulating the growth process.

The history of society is the history of struggles between social classes. Copyright 2006 The Review of Economic Studies Limited.