Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP9730
Authors: Francesco Cinnirella; Erik Hornung
Abstract: This paper studies the effect of landownership concentration on school enrollment for nineteenth century Prussia. Prussia is an interesting laboratory given its decentralized educational system and the presence of heterogeneous agricultural institutions. We find that landownership concentration, a proxy for the institution of serfdom, has a negative effect on schooling. This effect diminishes substantially towards the end of the century. Causality of this relationship is confirmed by introducing soil texture to identify exogenous farm-size variation. Panel estimates further rule out unobserved heterogeneity. We present several robustness checks which shed some light on possible mechanisms.
Keywords: education; institutions; land concentration; peasants; emancipation; Prussian economic history; serfdom
JEL Codes: I25; N33; O43; Q15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| landownership concentration (Q15) | school enrollment rates (I21) |
| farm size (Q12) | landownership concentration (Q15) |
| soil texture (Q15) | farm size (Q12) |
| soil texture (Q15) | school enrollment rates (I21) |
| land productivity (Q24) | school enrollment rates (I21) |