Human brain evolution in a Malthusian economy

Why did the human brain evolve? This study develops a Malthusian growth model with heterogeneous agents and natural selection to explore the evolution of human brain size. We find that if the cognitive advantage of a larger brain dominates its higher metabolic costs, then the average brain size incr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Macroeconomic dynamics 2025-01, Vol.29, p.1-13
Main Author: Chu, Angus C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Brain
Consumption
Economic analysis
Evolution
Fertility
Food
Growth models
Hominids
Metabolism
Productivity
Quantitative analysis
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Summary:Why did the human brain evolve? This study develops a Malthusian growth model with heterogeneous agents and natural selection to explore the evolution of human brain size. We find that if the cognitive advantage of a larger brain dominates its higher metabolic costs, then the average brain size increases over time, which is consistent with the rising trend in human brain size that started over 2 million years ago. Furthermore, an improvement in hunting-gathering productivity (e.g., the discovery of using stone tools and fire in hunting animals and cooking food) helps to trigger this human brain size evolution. As the average brain size increases, the average level of hunting-gathering productivity also rises over time. Quantitatively, our model is able to replicate the trend in hominin brain evolution over the last 10 million years.
ISSN:1365-1005
1469-8056
DOI:10.1017/S1365100524000646