Farmer Families at the Heart of the Educational Revolution: Which Occupational Group Inherited Human Capital in the Early Modern Era?

Arbeitspapier

In this paper, we assess the inheritance of human capital in the early modern period with a comprehensive dataset covering eight countries in Europe and Latin America. We focus on the within-household process of human capital formation. Gregory Clark suggested that the wealthy and 'capitalist' groups of society provided their offspring with favorable skills. We confirm this finding partially, but there is another large group that reproduces successfully: farmers. By applying age-heaping-based techniques to a dataset of more than 322,000 observations, we argue that farmers contributed significantly to the formation of human capital and, consequently, to modern economic growth.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: EHES Working Papers in Economic History ; No. 33

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: General, International, or Comparative ; Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology ; Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Tollnek, Franziska ; Baten, Joerg
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): European Historical Economics Society (EHES)
• (where): s.l.
• (when): 2012

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/246964
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET