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dc.contributor.authorde la Croix, David
dc.contributor.authorGoñi, Marc
dc.date.accessioned2021-03-18T15:04:50Z
dc.date.available2021-03-18T15:04:50Z
dc.date.issued2021-03-16
dc.identifier.issn0804-6824
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/11250/2734312
dc.description.abstractWe argue that the waning of nepotism in academia bolstered scientific production in pre-industrial Europe. We build a database of families of scholars (1088–1800), measure their scientific output, and develop a general method to disentangle nepotism from inherited human capital—two determinants of occupational persistence. This requires jointly addressing measurement error in human capital proxies and sample selection bias arising from nepotism. Our method exploits multi-generation correlations together with parent-child distributional differences to identify the structural parameters of a first-order Markov process of human capital transmission with nepotism. We find an intergenerational human capital elasticity of 0.59, higher than that suggested by parent-child elasticities, yet lower than multi-generation estimates ignoring nepotism. In early academia, 40 percent of scholars’ sons achieved their position because of nepotism. Nepotism was lower in science than in law and in Protestant than in Catholic institutions, and declined substantially during the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment—two periods of buoyant scientific advancement.en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisherInstitutt for samfunnsøkonomien_US
dc.relation.ispartofseriesDP SAM;09/2021
dc.subjectIntergenerational mobility, human capital transmission, nepotism, upper-tail human capital, pre-industrial Europe, simulated method of momentsen_US
dc.titleNepotism vs. Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital in Academia (1088–1800)en_US
dc.typeWorking paperen_US
dc.subject.nsiSamfunnsvitenskapen_US
dc.source.pagenumber101en_US
dc.relation.projectNorges Forskningsråd: 262675en_US


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