This application is one of three parallel submissions from separate institutions constituting a single project. The Principal Investigators are: Hillard Kaplan, University of New Mexico; Theodore Bergstrom, University of California at Santa Barbara; and David Lam, University of Michigan. The goal of this project is to develop a theoretical framework for addressing issues in the biodemography of aging. They will build on existing theoretical work in evolutionary biology and economics, taking care to inform their analysis by consulting anthropological field studies and empirical work in economics and demography.
The first aim i s to analyze the interdependence of fertility, human capital investments, and rates of senescence. They will develop theory to explain patterns of investment in growth and skill acquisition, health and longevity, and reproduction over the life cycle. These models will build on biological theories of senescence, mammalian life history, and on economic theories of intertemporal substitution and human capital formation.
The second aim i s to explore evolutionary foundations of human attitudes toward risk, intertemporal substitution, and intergenerational flows of wealth. They will explore practical implications of this theory for explaining human investments, risk-taking, and risk-sharing.
The third aim i s to improve the way that family interactions and sexual reproduction are treated in economic and biological models. Biologists have developed a significant body of theory regarding the relationships between mate choice, parental investment, mate-desertion, and life history profiles. Economists have developed theories of mate choice, mating markets and bargaining within marriages. These two literatures can be enriched by cross-breeding.
The fourth aim i s to integrate these models into a general life history theory of expenditures on self and descendants through time, providing a better theoretical basis for understanding age-specific mortality and fertility schedules.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01AG015906-01
Application #
2686047
Study Section
Social Sciences and Population Study Section (SSP)
Project Start
1998-09-01
Project End
2001-08-31
Budget Start
1998-09-01
Budget End
1999-08-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
1998
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of New Mexico
Department
Social Sciences
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
829868723
City
Albuquerque
State
NM
Country
United States
Zip Code
87131
Kaplan, Hillard S; Robson, Arthur J (2002) The emergence of humans: the coevolution of intelligence and longevity with intergenerational transfers. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 99:10221-6
Kaplan, Hillard; Lancaster, Jane B; Tucker, W Troy et al. (2002) Evolutionary approach to below replacement fertility. Am J Hum Biol 14:233-56