Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-4hvwz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-29T10:30:55.492Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inheritance, urbanization, and political change in Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2018

Mircea Popa
Mircea Popa*
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Politics, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
*
*E-mail: mircea.popa@bristol.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Urbanization and the development of middle and working classes have been proposed as a key explanation for political change in the Western world. This article argues that the traditional inheritance systems practiced across Europe have played an important role in the differential development of these urban classes in the period 1700–1900. Inheritance systems that practice some degree of inequality between heirs will lead to more children, generally younger brothers, leaving the land and taking up urban occupations. A statistical analysis of geographical data shows that regions in which such unequal inheritance was practiced were two to three times more likely to develop urban areas after 1700. This claim is robust to a number of challenges, including country fixed effects, and to only looking at Western Europe. An important mechanism through which the divergence may have occurred is illustrated through a quantitative analysis of pairs of brothers in the UK and Romania, two countries with opposing inheritance traditions.

Keywords

political developmentinheritanceinstitutional changecomparative politics
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 37 - 56
Copyright
© European Consortium for Political Research 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramson, S Boix, C (2014) The Roots of the Industrial Revolution: Political Institutions or (Socially Embedded) Know-How? Unpublished manuscript, Princeton University.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, D Robinson, JA (2000a) Why did the west extend the franchise? Democracy, inequality, and growth in historical perspective. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 115(4), 1167–1199.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, D Robinson, JA (2000b) Political losers as a barrier to economic development. American Economic Review 90(2), 126–130.Google Scholar
Ansell, B.W Samuels, DJ (2014) Inequality and Democratization, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bairoch, P (1988) Cities and Economic Development: From the Dawn of History to the Present, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Baker, M Miceli, TJ (2005) Land inheritance rules: theory and crosscultural analysis. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 56(1), 77–102.Google Scholar
Beckert, J (2008) Inherited Wealth, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Berkner, LK (1978) Inheritance, land tenure and peasant family structure: a German regional comparison. In Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe, 1200–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Berkner, L Mendels, F (1978) Inheritance systems, family structure and demographic patterns in Western Europe. in Charles Tilly (ed.), Historical Studies of Changing Fertility, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bernheim, BD Severinov, S (2003) Bequests as signals: an explanation for the equal division puzzle. Journal of Political Economy 111(4), 733–764.Google Scholar
Bertocchi, G (2006) The law of primogeniture and the transition from landed aristocracy to industrial democracy. Journal of Economic Growth 11(1), 43–70.Google Scholar
Bloch, M (2014) Feudal Society, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Boix, C (2003) Democracy and Redistribution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Burke, B (1869) A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire, London: Harrison.Google Scholar
Capoccia, G Ziblatt, D (2010) The historical turn in democratization studies: a new research agenda for Europe and Beyond. Comparative Political Studies 43(8–9), 931–968.Google Scholar
Chandler, T (1987) Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census, Lewiston, NY: St David’s University Press.Google Scholar
Chu, CC (1991) Primogeniture. Journal of Political Economy 99(1), 78–99.Google Scholar
Collier, RB (1999) Paths toward Democracy: The Working Class and Elites in Western Europe and South America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Conley, TG Stata v6.0 Code for “Logit” Estimation With Spatial Standard Errors. Software downloaded from http://economics.uwo.ca/people/conley_docs/code_to_download_gmm.html.Google Scholar
Conley, TG (1999) GMM estimation with cross sectional dependence. Journal of Econometrics 92(1), 1–45.Google Scholar
Cooper, J (1978) Patterns of inheritance and settlement by great landowners from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In: Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe, 1200–1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
De Long, JB Shleifer, A (1993) Princes and merchants: European city growth before the industrial revolution. The Journal of Law and Economics 36(2), 671–702.Google Scholar
Denevan, WM (1992) The pristine myth: the landscape of the Americas in 1492. Annals – Association of American Geographers 82, 369–385.Google Scholar
DeLong, JB (2003) Bequests: An Historical Perspective. The Role and Impact of Gifts and Estates, Washington DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
de Vries, J (1984) European Urbanization, 1500-1800, London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Dincecco, M Onorato, MG (2016) Military conflict and the rise of urban Europe. Journal of Economic Growth 21(3), pp. 259–282.Google Scholar
Dincecco, M Onorato, MG (2017), From Warfare to Wealth, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ellis, EC, Klein Goldewijk, K, Siebert, S, Lightman, D Ramankutty, N (2010) Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000. Global Ecology and Biogeography 19(5), 589–606.Google Scholar
Eurostat Administrative units/statistical units: Nuts 2010 shapefile (nuts_2010_03m_sh.zip). Retreived 2 April, 2015.Google Scholar
Goody, J (1978), Chapter inheritance, property and women: some comparative considerations. In Family and Inheritance Rural Society in Western Europe, 1200–1800, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goody, J, Thirsk, J Thompson, EP (1978) Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe, 1200-1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Grant, OW (2002) Productivity in German Agriculture: Estimates of Agricultural Productivity from Regional Accounts for 21 German Regions, 1880/4, 1893/7 and 1905/9. University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Habakkuk, HJ (1955) Family structure and economic change in nineteenth-century Europe. The Journal of Economic History 15(01), 1–12.Google Scholar
Howell, C (1978) Peasant inheritance customs in the Midlands, 1280–1700. In: Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe, 1200–1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kaser, K (2002) Power and inheritance. The History of the Family 7(3), 375–395.Google Scholar
Klein Goldewijk, K, Beusen, A Janssen, P (2010) Long-term dynamic modeling of global population and built-up area in a spatially explicit way: HYDE 3.1. The Holocene 20(4), 565–573.Google Scholar
Klein Goldewijk, K, Beusen, A, Van Drecht, G De Vos, M (2011) The HYDE3.1 Spatially Explicit Database of Human-Induced Global Land-Use Change Over the Past 12,000 Years. Global Ecology and Biogeography 20(1), 73–86.Google Scholar
Kokkonen, A Sundell, A (2014) Delivering Stability: Primogeniture and Autocratic Survival in European Monarchies 1000-1800. American Political Science Review 108(02), 438–453.Google Scholar
Lahmeyer, J (2004) Populstat database. http://www.populstat.info/.Google Scholar
Laiou-Thomadakis, AE 1977. Peasant Society in the Late Byzantine Empire, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Landes, DS (2003) The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Le Roy Ladourie, E (1978) Family structures and inheritance customs in sixteenth century France. In: Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe, 1200–1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lecca, OG (1899) Familiile boeresti romane: Istorii si genealogie, Bucharest: Minerva.Google Scholar
Livi-Bacci, M (2007) A Concise History of World Population, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Luebbert, GM (1991) Liberalism, Fascism, or Social Democracy: Social Classes and the Political Origins of Regimes in Interwar Europe, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Maddison, A (2001) The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Manjunatha, AV, Anik, AR, Speelman, S Nuppenau, EA (2013) Impact of land fragmentation, farm size, land ownership and crop diversity on profit and efficiency of irrigated farms in India. Land Use Policy 31, 397–405.Google Scholar
Marshall, MG, Jaggers, K Gurr, TR (2002) Polity IV Project, College Park, MD: University of Maryland College Park.Google Scholar
McEvedy, C Jones, R (1978) Atlas of World Population History, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd. Google Scholar
Moore, B (1966) Social Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship, Beacon: Boston.Google Scholar
Motamed, MJ, Florax, RJ Masters, WA (2014) Agriculture, transportation and the timing of urbanization: global analysis at the grid cell level. Journal of Economic Growth 19(3), 339–368.Google Scholar
Muller, D (2005) Stata in space: econometric analysis of spatially explicit raster data. Stata Journal 5(2), 224.Google Scholar
Murdock, GP (1967) Ethnographic atlas: a summary. Ethnology 6(2), 109–236.Google Scholar
Niroula, GS Thapa, GB (2005) Impacts and causes of land fragmentation, and lessons learned from land consolidation in South Asia. Land Use Policy 22(4), 358–372.Google Scholar
Nunn, N Qian, N (2011) The potato’s contribution to population and urbanization: evidence from a historical experiment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 126(2), 593–650.Google Scholar
Przeworski, A (2009) Conquered or granted? A history of suffrage extensions. British Journal of Political Science 39(02), 291–321.Google Scholar
Rahman, S Rahman, M (2009) Impact of land fragmentation and resource ownership on productivity and efficiency: the case of rice producers in Bangladesh. Land Use Policy 26(1), 95–103.Google Scholar
Rijpma, A Carmichael, SG (2016) Testing Todd and Matching Murdock: global data on historical family characteristics. Economic History of Developing Regions 31(1), 10–46.Google Scholar
Rokkan, S (1975) Dimensions of state formation and nation building: a possible paradigm for research om variations within Europe. in C. Tilly (ed.), The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rueschemeyer, D, Stephens, J Stephens, EH (1992) Capitalist Development and Democracy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sabean, DW (1978) Aspects of kinship behaviours and property in rural Western Europe before 1800. In: Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe, 1200–1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sabates‐Wheeler, R (2002) Consolidation initiatives after land reform: responses to multiple dimensions of land fragmentation in Eastern European agriculture. Journal of International Development 14(7), 1005–1018.Google Scholar
Schonhardt-Bailey, C (1998) Parties and interests in the ‘marriage of iron and rye’. British Journal of Political Science 28(2), 291–332.Google Scholar
Spring, E (1997) Law, Land, and Family: Aristocratic Inheritance in England 1300 to 1800, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Spring, D (1977) European elites compared. In: European Landed Elites in the 19th Century, Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Spufford, M (1978) Peasant inheritance customs and land distribution in Cambridgeshire from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In: Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe, 1200–1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stern, F (1977) Prussia. In: European Landed Elites in the 19th Century, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, C (1992) Coercion, Capital and European States, 990-1992, Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Todd, E (1985) The Explanation of Ideology: Family Structures and Social Systems, Oxford and New York: B. Blackwell.Google Scholar
Todd, E (1987) The Causes of Progress: Culture, Authority, and Change, Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Todd, E (1990) L’Invention de l’Europe (The invention of Europe), Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Todd, E (1999) La Diversite du Monde: Structures Familiales et Modernite, Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Van Zanden, JL, Buringh, E Bosker, M (2012) The rise and decline of European Parliaments, 1188–1789. The Economic History Review 65(3), 835–861.Google Scholar
Wallis, P Webb, C (2011) The education and training of gentry sons in early modern England. Social History 36(1), 36–53.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Popa supplementary material

Appendix

Download Popa supplementary material(File)
File 41.9 KB