Change and Persistence in the Age of Modernization: Saint-Germain-d'Anxure 1730-1895

Guillaume Blanc and Romain Wacziarg

No 25490, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Using a unique, comprehensive household-level dataset for a single French village from 1730 to 1895, we study the process of modernization during a period of rapid institutional and demographic transformation. We document changes in fertility, mortality, human capital and intergenerational mobility, looking for structural breaks associated with the French Revolution and paying close attention to the sequencing of changes associated with various aspects of modernization in the village. We find that the fall in fertility preceded the rise in education by several decades. Demographic change is plausibly associated with institutional and cultural change rather than with changes in the opportunity cost of children. The rise in education occurred mostly as the result of an increase in the supply of schooling due to the Guizot Law, rather than demand side forces. All these changes occurred in the absence of industrialization in and around the village. We conclude that institutional and cultural changes originating outside the village were likely the dominant forces explaining its modernization.

JEL-codes: N13 N33 N43 O43 O52 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro and nep-his
Note: DAE EFG POL
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published as Guillaume Blanc & Romain Wacziarg, 2020. "Change and Persistence in the Age of Modernization: Saint-Germain-d’Anxure, 1730-1895," Explorations in Economic History, .

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Journal Article: Change and persistence in the Age of Modernization: Saint-Germain-d’Anxure, 1730–1895 (2020)
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