Gateway to Think Tanks
来源类型 | Working Paper |
规范类型 | 报告 |
DOI | 10.3386/w22779 |
来源ID | Working Paper 22779 |
Knowledge Elites and Modernization: Evidence from Revolutionary France | |
Mara P. Squicciarini; Nico Voigtländer | |
发表日期 | 2016-10-31 |
出版年 | 2016 |
语种 | 英语 |
摘要 | This paper examines the role of knowledge elites in modernization. At the eve of the French Revolution, in the spring of 1789, King Louis XVI solicited lists of grievances (Cahiers de Doléances), in which the public could express complaints and suggestions for reforms of the Ancien Regime. We show that the demand for mass education and democratization was particularly high in regions that had a thick knowledge elite, measured by subscribers to the famous Encyclopédie in the 1770s. Historical evidence suggests that this pattern is driven by the spirit of enlightenment of French knowledge elites. Pre-revolution literacy, in contrast, is not correlated with demand for mass education or with the density of knowledge elites. After the French Revolution, knowledge elites played a key role in implementing schooling reforms at the local level. We show that by the mid-19th century, schooling rates were significantly higher in regions with thicker knowledge elites. The same is true of other proxies for modernization, such as association membership, Republican votes, and the share of French-speaking pupils. Our results highlight an important interaction between local culture (the spirit of enlightenment) and nation-wide institutions in economic development: the French Revolution opened a window of opportunity for local elites to pursue their agenda of modernization. |
主题 | Labor Economics ; Labor Supply and Demand ; History ; Macroeconomic History ; Development and Growth ; Development |
URL | https://www.nber.org/papers/w22779 |
来源智库 | National Bureau of Economic Research (United States) |
引用统计 | |
资源类型 | 智库出版物 |
条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/580452 |
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Mara P. Squicciarini,Nico Voigtländer. Knowledge Elites and Modernization: Evidence from Revolutionary France. 2016. |
条目包含的文件 | ||||||
文件名称/大小 | 资源类型 | 版本类型 | 开放类型 | 使用许可 | ||
w22779.pdf(245KB) | 智库出版物 | 限制开放 | CC BY-NC-SA | 浏览 |
除非特别说明,本系统中所有内容都受版权保护,并保留所有权利。