Inheritance, Demographics, and Economic Development 

Project funded by the European Union (ERC, IDED, project number 947654). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. 

Economists study inheritance and demographics in isolation, overlooking the feedback effects between the two. This is surprising given that other social scientists have typically related inheritance schemes to family structures. The general objective of this research is to understand the implications of these interconnections for the process of economic development.  

First, I will create new databases for European countries between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries, and for Sub-Saharan African countries during the past century until today. These databases will enable us to establish facts relating inheritance schemes, family structures and demographic variables. Second, I will propose structural models of inheritance, family structures, marriage and fertility in order to rationalize these facts.  

These models will assess the importance of the relationship between inheritance and demographics when studying the effect of inheritance on economic outcomes. The databases and structural models will provide answers to specific applied research questions: (i) The Demographic Transition: Was the French Revolution responsible for the demographic transition? What were the relevant channels (partible inheritance and inclusion of women)? How did the abolition of primogeniture affect the elites’ demographic transition? (ii) The European Marriage Pattern: how did its characteristics – late marriages and high life-long celibacy – vary across inheritance systems? Which one of these was most beneficial for gender empowerment? (iii) Sub-Saharan Africa’s demographic transitions: Can the harmonization of inheritance practices reactivate stalling demographic transitions? How does land scarcity affect the relationship between inheritance practices, family structures, and demographics? 

Ongoing research projects:


Data papers projects:


Publications

Media coverage and links to presentations:

Related publications:

Childless Aristocrats. Inheritance and the extensive margin of fertility. The Economic Journal, 131(637):2089-2118, 2021. [with Marc Goñi]