Early Literacy Achievements, Population Density, and the Transition to Modern Growth
从最优行为出发，推导人口密度对生产率的影响，发现英格兰1540-1620年间识字率上升的三分之一可直接归因于人口密度效应，六分之一与寿命延长有关。
The transition from economic stagnation to sustained growth is often modeled thanks to âpopulation inducedâ productivity improvements, which are assumed rather than derived from primary assumptions. In this paper the effect of population on productivity is derived from optimal behavior. More precisely, both the number and location of education facilities are chosen optimally by municipalities. Individuals determine their education investment depending on the distance to the nearest school, and also on technical progress and longevity. In this setting, higher population density enables the set-up costs of additional schools to be covered, opening the possibility to reach higher educational levels. Using counterfactual experiments we find that one-third of the rise in literacy can be directly attributed to the effect of density, and one-sixth is linked to higher longevity. Moreover, the effect of population density in the model is consistent with the available evidence for England, where it is shown that schools were established at a high rate over the period 1540â1620.