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EH.NET BOOK REVIEW 
 
Published by EH.NET  (August 1997) 
 
Richard A. Easterlin, _ Growth Triumphant: The Twenty-first Century in 
Historical Perspective_. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 
1996.  Pp. xiv + 200.  $37.50 (cloth), ISBN: 0472106945. 
 
Reviewed for EH.NET by Dora Costa, Department of Economics, MIT. 
<[log in to unmask]> 
 
In this masterful synthesis, Richard Easterlin (Department of Economics, 
University of Southern California) draws on the disciplines of economic 
history, demography, sociology, political science, psychology, and the 
history of science to present an integrated explanation of the origins of 
modern economic growth and of the mortality revolution.   His emphasis is 
on long-term factors and on similarities across nations.  His book should 
be easily accessible to non-specialists and will give them a sense of why 
economic history can inform our understanding of the future. 
 
Richard Easterlin convincingly argues that technological change underlies 
both modern economic growth and the mortality revolution.  Underlying this 
technological change is a set of procedures and attitudes that include 
reliance on experiments and observed facts.  In the case of modern economic 
growth, this technological change should not necessarily be equated with 
industrialization, but rather is simply the introduction of new technology, 
including agricultural, in the economy.   This technological change has 
produced certain commonalities in development, including the gradual 
acceleration in real per capita income growth, urbanization, and the growth 
of a white collar work force. 
 
According to Easterlin, modern economic growth began before the modern rise 
in life expectancy because technological change in the physical sciences 
preceded technological change in health and medicine, simply because the 
conceptual state of the physical sciences was far more advanced.  Easterlin 
argues that although modern economic growth may have increased resistance 
to disease (for example, by increasing food intake), it also increased 
exposure to disease.  In contrast, in developing nations the mortality 
revolution has often preceded economic growth both because we know how to 
control disease (e.g. sewage and clean water) and because the necessary 
public health investments are inexpensive.  Because urbanization created 
demand for public municipal services, he views the rise of government as a 
direct consequence of technological change. 
 
Once mortality, particularly childhood mortality, fell, Easterlin argues 
that we moved from a society of high to low fertility.  At first the 
increase in the number of surviving children caused fertility to fall after 
families realized that they could achieve their target number of children 
with fewer births, then the target number of children fell as children 
became more expensive thanks to advances in education, urbanization, and 
the introduction of new goods.  The population explosion of developing 
countries should, therefore, slowly reverse. 
 
Easterlin presents a very optimistic picture of the future, arguing that 
modern economic growth will spread to all countries of the world and 
neither declining population growth nor an aging population will lead to 
economic stagnation. We have the technology and many of the preconditions 
for economic growth, such as institutions for the accumulation of physical 
and human capital and the mobility of labor and capital, are already 
present in developing countries. In an example of the sort of long-run 
perspective that the book is best at, Easterlin shows that even the aging 
of the baby boomers will not produce a dependency burden that is high by 
historic standards. 
 
Within this optimistic scenario, he sees two causes for concern.  One is 
that the spread of economic growth shifts the balance of power to newer, 
more populous developing countries that do not share our commitment to 
democracy and human rights and this may produce political as well as 
military clashes. The other is that income cannot buy happiness and that 
despite previously unimaginable levels of affluence, material concerns are 
as pressing as ever. According to Easterlin technology will always produce 
new goods that we will want and, because people measure happiness in 
relative terms, they will forever be stuck on a hedonic treadmill. 
 
It is this last point, "the triumph of material wants over humanity" that I 
found controversial and whenever there is controversy, the drawbacks of a 
synthesis become readily apparent.  The reader wants to know more, wants 
further breakdowns of the data.  Easterlin cites surveys that show that 
people in both the United States and abroad are no happier than they were 
twenty years ago despite increases in per capita income.  He also cites 
surveys that show that personal income, family, and health are individuals' 
primary concerns in all countries surveyed.  But, what about recent polls 
showing that 48 percent of U.S. workers had either cut back on hours of 
work, declined a promotion, reduced their commitments, lowered their 
material expectations, or moved to a place with a quieter life during the 
preceding five years?  What about the tremendous decline in market hours of 
work, whether measured in terms of weekly hours, increased vacation time or 
sick leave, or increasing number of years spent in retirement?  As wages 
have risen so has the opportunity cost of these hours.  The history of 
modern economic growth is not just one of increasing numbers of consumer 
goods, but also one of increasing hours of leisure.  These hours of leisure 
have enabled more and more individuals to achieve some kind of 
self-realization.  There will always be individuals who will not know what 
to do with their free time or spend it in ways we disapprove of, such as 
watching television.  But, what of the individuals who work in order to be 
rock climbers or who teach classes in order to do research?  I am not 
surprised that when surveyed individuals state that they would like more 
money (more is always better than less), but the question that we must ask 
is whether they are willing to trade off time that could be spent with 
family members or in enjoyable pursuits for more material goods and how 
this trade-off has changed over time. 
 
Dora L. Costa 
Department of Economics 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
 
Dora Costa is author of a forthcoming (1998) book, _The Evolution of 
Retirement: An American Economic History, 1880-1990_. 
 
Copyright (c) 1997 by EH.Net and H-Net, all rights reserved.  This work may 
be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the 
author and the list.  For other permission, please contact 
[log in to unmask] (Robert Whaples, Book Review Editor, EH.Net. 
Telephone: 910-758-4916. Fax: 910-758-6028.) 
 
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