Revolutionary Transition: Inheritance Change and Fertility Decline", with Victor Gay and Marc Goñi
Abstract:
France's demographic transition occurred a centu ry before any other country's. We test Le Play's hypothesis that this demog raphic transition was triggered by the harmonization of inheritance practic es after the French Revolution. After a series of laws implemented in 1793, the Loi de Nivôse, year II, imposed the equality principle, effectively ab olishing impartible inheritance practices that excluded non-heirs from inhe riting. In regions that moved from impartible to partible inheritance, we e xpect fertility to decline if parents face a quantity-quality tradeoff. In regions that removed the exclusion of women, we expect fertility to decline because of women's empowerment and delay in marriage ages. To test these h ypotheses, we will compile a harmonized map of inheritance practices before the French Revolution at a highly-disaggregate level. We distinguish betwe en partible vs. impartible inheritance and practices that exclude vs. inclu de women. To estimate the effect of these inheritance practices on fertilit y, we will use genealogical data and exploit the 1793 harmonization in a di fference-in-differences framework. Finally, we will study whether the impos ition of the equality principle in other countries through the Napoleonic c ode propagated the demographic transition outside France.
DTSTAMP:20260405T220053Z DTSTART:20211202T163000Z DTEND:20211202T180000Z SEQUENCE:0 TRANSP:OPAQUE END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR