Research

Work in Progress

Networks, Modernization, and Integration: Jewish Emancipation in Nineteenth-Century Germany

With Lukas Rosenberger and Assaf Sarid

This project examines how economic development and community networks jointly shaped Jewish economic and cultural integration in nineteenth-century Germany. Following emancipation, integration unfolded unevenly: Jewish occupational structures remained distinct from those of Christians, with specialization in the free professions, even as Jews became increasingly assimilated. We argue that modernization raised the returns to assimilation, while dense Jewish social ties, formed under centuries of forced segregation, facilitated entry into the free professions, where reputation and trust were essential. Railway expansion linked these forces by both increasing market access and sustaining inter-community connections. Empirically, we combine county-level occupation data, city-level marriage records, information on railway expansion, and newly assembled individual-level data from Jewish name-adoption lists to trace specialization and acculturation across space and over time. This empirical structure allows us to isolate a development channel from a distinct network channel and to provide systematic evidence on the joint evolution of Jewish specialization and assimilation.

Fertility, Education, and the Persistence of Son Preference

This project studies how fertility and son preference coevolve during the demographic transition. I develop a model in which families with strong son preference continue childbearing until a son is born, leading to higher fertility. As the demographic transition shifts parental investment toward quality rather than quantity, fertility differences between families with and without son preference widen, increasing the relative prevalence of the former. This compositional shift, in turn, slows the demographic transition. The model therefore predicts a weaker transition in regions where son preference is more prevalent. I test these predictions using linked U.S. census data from 1850 to 1910.

Inheritance and Openness: Institutional Reform and Elite Access in Germany

Who gains access to elite positions, and how do the rules governing that access change over time? This project examines institutional reform in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Germany that professionalized the civil service and curtailed the role of inherited privilege in recruitment and promotion. Leveraging newly assembled biographical data and variation in reform timing across German states, it follows three lines of inquiry. First, it analyzes whether reforms reshaped access rules by shifting promotion criteria from family connections to individual competence. Second, it examines how incumbent elites adapted to these changes, focusing on adjustments to marriage networks. Third, it asks whether more open recruitment improved administrative performance by enhancing personnel quality or service outcomes. Together, these lines offer a perspective on how societies remake their elites and the consequences of those changes for state capacity.

Publications

On the Coevolution of Individualism and Institutions (Journal of Economic Growth, 2024)

With Moti Michaeli and Assaf Sarid

To unravel the roots of the relationship between the individualism–collectivism dimension of culture (IC) and market-supporting institutions, we develop a model where the two interact and coevolve. IC and institutions are related indirectly via social organization: agents settle either in the Town, a loose organization where they work independently, or in the Clan, a cohesive organization where they engage in collective work. The town’s relative economic potential positively affects the town’s size and institutional quality. A larger town then renders society more individualistic, which attracts even more agents to the town and improves its institutional quality. The resulting positive feedback loop drives societies toward different steady states. If the town’s relative economic potential is sufficiently high, the society converges to a steady state with a completely individualistic culture, high institutional quality, and a large town. Otherwise, the society converges to a steady state with a completely collectivistic culture, weak institutions, and a large clan. We conclude that contemporary IC and institutions exhibit path dependence and are thus related to the historical exogenous conditions in each region. Using current and historical data, we provide empirical evidence supporting our model. In addition, we apply the model to discuss the historical divergence between China and Europe.

Paper   

Coverage: Interview at Faculti