The institution of slavery displays a puzzling historical pattern: it is found mostly at intermediate stages of agricultural development, in horticultural societies, and less frequently among hunter-gatherers and societies at more advanced agrarian stages. We explain this rise-and- fall pattern...

The institution of slavery displays a puzzling historical pattern: it is found mostly at intermediate stages of agricultural development, in horticultural societies, and less frequently among hunter-gatherers and societies at more advanced agrarian stages. We explain this rise-and- fall pattern...

We set up a unified growth model capturing the transition of a primitive and egalitarian hunter-gatherer society, into an advanced and despotic early civilization, and finally into a more egalitarian industrial society. Agents are either landowners or landless; both earn income from human...