Rethinking Age-Heaping. A Cautionary Tale from Nineteenth Century Italy

Brian A'Hearn, Alexia Delfino () and Alessandro Nuvolari

LEM Papers Series from Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy

Abstract: A growing literature employs age-heaping as an indicator of human capital, more specifically of numeracy. We re-examine this link in light of a range of evidence from nineteenth century Italy, which suggests that age-heapers were most likely ignorant of their age, not their numbers. Though it can stand in as an acceptable proxy for literacy, our findings indicate that age-heaping is most plausibly interpreted as an indicator of cultural and institutional modernisation rather than a measure of cognitive skills.

Keywords: Age-Heaping; Numeracy; Human capital; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-11-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Rethinking age heaping: a cautionary tale from nineteenth‐century Italy (2022)
Working Paper: Rethinking Age-heaping, a Cautionary Tale From Nineteenth Century Italy (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2016/35

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