Regional inequality in human capital formation in Europe, 1790–1880

Abstract

Recent theoretical advances reveal the importance of human capital for long-run economic growth. However, the absence of data makes it difficult to measure human capital before 1870 at the national level, let alone at the regional level within countries. By using the age heaping method and a large, new data set, we approximate the numeracy values in more than 570 regions in Europe between 1790 and 1880. The results indicate a significant gap in numeracy levels between advanced west and central European countries and the rest of Europe. Nevertheless, differences in basic numeracy between and within countries became smaller over the nineteenth century, as the periphery solved its basic numeracy problem.

Age heaping patterns in Mosaic data

“…13. At a most general level, these regularities are reminiscent of numeracy patterns established in earlier studies (see Hippe and Baten 2012). 14.…”

“…Crayen and Baten 2010;Baten, Szo»tysek, and Campestrini 2017; also Hippe and Baten 2012) based on a unique dataset.…”

“…To do so, the following categories are considered: pre-1800, 1800-1850, and after 1850 (reference category). We assume that age heaping would decline over time (Hippe and Baten 2012). Next to this, our regional datasets were distinguished as either urban or rural, and based on whether their respective populations were subjected to serfdom.…”

The long-run impact of human capital on innovation and economic development in the regions of Europe

“…Numeracy is measured by the age heaping method which has been used in an increasing number of recent publications (A'Hearn, Crayen, and Baten 2009;Manzel and Baten 2009;Crayen and Baten 2010;Hippe 2012b;Hippe and Baten 2012;Baten and Hippe 2017;Diebolt, Hippe, and Jaoul-Grammare 2017).…”

Why did the knowledge transition occur in the West and not in the East? ICT and the role of governments in Europe, East Asia and the Muslim world

“…Therefore demand grew in Korea for both Buddhist and Confucian materials [Sohn 1959]. 21 This ideology of elite education somewhat corresponds to the importance attributed to literacy skills in elite education in Europe, where numeracy skills and other practical skills were largely neglected for a many centuries [Hippe 2012a; see also Hippe 2012b; Hippe and Baten 2012]. However these literacy skills could often be used for oral communication in Europe which was not possible in Asia.…”