The paper explains long-term changes in birth, death rates, and in attitude to personal consumption by evolution of preferences by means of cultural transmission. When communities are culturally isolated, they are focused on population growth, which results in large fertility and welfare transfers to children, limited adult consumption, and lack of old-age support. With increasing cultural contact across communities, successful cultural traits induce their hosts to increase their social visibility by limiting fertility and increasing longevity via higher individual consumption. Empirical analysis confirms that social visibility, as measured by the number of language versions of Wikipedia biographical pages, is associated with fewer children and longer lifespan. The presence of notable individuals precedes reduced aggregate birth rates.

中文翻译：

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死人不讲故事：文化传播在人口变化中的作用

本文通过文化传播的方式，通过偏好的演变，解释了出生率、死亡率和个人消费态度的长期变化。当社区在文化上处于孤立状态时，他们会关注人口增长，这导致大量生育和福利转移给儿童，成人消费受限以及缺乏老年人支持。随着社区之间文化接触的增加，成功的文化特征通过限制生育率和通过更高的个人消费增加寿命来促使他们的主人提高他们的社会知名度。实证分析证实，以维基百科传记页面的语言版本数量衡量的社会知名度与更少的孩子和更长的寿命有关。著名人物的出现先于总出生率的降低。