IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bos/iedwpr/dp-154.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Path Dependence and Occupations

Author

Listed:
  • Maristella Botticini

    (Institute for Economic Development, Boston University)

  • Zvi Eckstein

    (Tel Aviv University)

Abstract

Path dependence in occupations refers to the observed occupational distribution in a population or in a sub-population at a point in time that depends on changes that occurred years or centuries earlier. Path dependence in occupations can be the outcome of the cumulative concentration of certain productive activities in specific regions over time, it can emerge through the effect of parental income or wealth on offspring’s occupations and incomes, or it can be the outcome of group effects. Some historical cases are selected to illustrate the various mechanisms through which path dependence in occupations can emerge or disappear.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Maristella Botticini & Zvi Eckstein, 2006. "Path Dependence and Occupations," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series DP-154, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bos:iedwpr:dp-154
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bu.edu/econ/ied/dp/papers/dp154Botticini.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2003. "The "Virtues" of the Past: Education in the First Hundred Years of the New Republic," NBER Working Papers 9958, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Andrew F. Newman, 1991. "Risk-Bearing and the Theory of Income Distribution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 211-235.
    3. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    4. Greif, Avner, 1989. "Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 857-882, December.
    5. Krugman, Paul, 1991. "History and Industry Location: The Case of the Manufacturing Belt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 80-83, May.
    6. Krugman, Paul, 1991. "Increasing Returns and Economic Geography," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 483-499, June.
    7. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Newman, Andrew F, 1993. "Occupational Choice and the Process of Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 274-298, April.
    8. Goldin, Claudia, 1992. "Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195072709.
    9. Dilip Mookherjee & Debraj Ray, 2002. "Contractual Structure and Wealth Accumulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 818-849, September.
    10. Arthur, W Brian, 1989. "Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In by Historical Events," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(394), pages 116-131, March.
    11. Donohue, John J, III & Heckman, James, 1991. "Continuous versus Episodic Change: The Impact of Civil Rights Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 1603-1643, December.
    12. Loury, Glenn C, 1981. "Intergenerational Transfers and the Distribution of Earnings," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 843-867, June.
    13. Eckstein, Zvi & Zilcha, Itzhak, 1994. "The effects of compulsory schooling on growth, income distribution and welfare," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 339-359, July.
    14. repec:cup:jechis:v:57:y:1997:i:03:p:607-632_01 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1979. "An Equilibrium Theory of the Distribution of Income and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1153-1189, December.
    16. Dilip Mookherjee & Debraj Ray, 2003. "Persistent Inequality," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(2), pages 369-393.
    17. Jason Long & Joseph Ferrie, 2005. "A Tale of Two Labor Markets: Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Britain and the U.S. Since 1850," NBER Working Papers 11253, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Blume, Lawrence E. & Durlauf, Steven N., 2005. "The Economy As an Evolving Complex System III: Current Perspectives and Future Directions," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195162592.
    19. Botticini, Maristella & Eckstein, Zvi, 2005. "Jewish Occupational Selection: Education, Restrictions, or Minorities?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(4), pages 922-948, December.
    20. Maristella Botticini & Zvi Eckstein, 2006. "From Farmers to Merchants, Voluntary Conversion and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 2, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    21. Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis, 2002. "The Inheritance of Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 3-30, Summer.
    22. Liebowitz, S J & Margolis, Stephen E, 1995. "Path Dependence, Lock-in, and History," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 205-226, April.
    23. Goldin, Claudia, 1986. "Monitoring Costs and Occupational Segregation by Sex: A Historical Analysis," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(1), pages 1-27, January.
    24. David, Paul A, 1985. "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 332-337, May.
    25. David, Paul A., 1994. "Why are institutions the 'carriers of history'?: Path dependence and the evolution of conventions, organizations and institutions," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 205-220, December.
    26. William J. Collins, 2001. "Race, Roosevelt, and Wartime Production: Fair Employment in World War II Labor Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 272-286, March.
    27. Maristella Botticini & Zvi Eckstein, 2006. "From Farmers to Merchants, Voluntary Conversion and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 2, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    28. Collins, Wiiliam J., 1997. "When the Tide Turned: Immigration and the Delay of the Great Black Migration," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(3), pages 607-632, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Antonio Romero-Medina & Matteo Triossi, 2013. "Games with capacity manipulation: incentives and Nash equilibria," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 41(3), pages 701-720, September.
    2. Doepke, Matthias & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 2014. "Culture, Entrepreneurship, and Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1-48, Elsevier.
    3. Lydon, Ghislaine, 2009. "A paper economy of faith without faith in paper: A reflection on Islamic institutional history," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 647-659, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mookherjee, Dilip & Napel, Stefan, 2007. "Intergenerational mobility and macroeconomic history dependence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 49-78, November.
    2. Samuel Bowles & Glenn C. Loury & Rajiv Sethi, 2014. "Group Inequality," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 129-152, February.
    3. Falilou Fall, 2005. "Endogenous persistent inequality," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00196084, HAL.
    4. Dilip Mookherjee & Debraj Ray, 2003. "Persistent Inequality," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(2), pages 369-393.
    5. Marcello D'Amato & Christian Di Pietro & Marco M. Sorge, 2023. "Left and Right: A Tale of Two Tails of the Wealth Distribution," CSEF Working Papers 691, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    6. Hidalgo Cabrillana, Ana, 2009. "Endogenous capital market imperfections, human capital, and intergenerational mobility," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 285-298, November.
    7. Azariadis, Costas & Stachurski, John, 2005. "Poverty Traps," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 5, Elsevier.
    8. Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Ross Levine, 2009. "Finance and Inequality: Theory and Evidence," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 287-318, November.
    9. Schneider, Andrea, 2010. "Redistributive taxation vs. education subsidies: Fostering equality and social mobility in an intergenerational model," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 597-605, August.
    10. Christopher B. Barrett, 2005. "Rural poverty dynamics: development policy implications," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 32(s1), pages 45-60, January.
    11. Mookherjee, Dilip & Napel, Stefan, 2021. "Welfare rationales for conditionality of cash transfers," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    12. Henry Ohlsson & Jesper Roine & Daniel Waldenstrom, 2006. "Long-Run Changes in the Concentration of Wealth: An Overview of Recent Findings," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2006-103, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Vincenzo Lombardo, 2008. "Income distribution and Growth: A Critical Survey," Working Papers 11_2008, D.E.S. (Department of Economic Studies), University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    14. Dilip Mookherjee & debraj Ray, 2005. "Occupational Diversity and Endogenous Inequality," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-142, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    15. Omer Moav and & Zvika Neeman, 2012. "Saving Rates and Poverty: The Role of Conspicuous Consumption and Human Capital," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(563), pages 933-956, September.
    16. Bavaro, Michele & Patriarca, Fabrizio, 2022. "Referrals, intergenerational mobility and human capital accumulation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    17. Anderson, Bret, 2012. "Converting Asset Holdings into Livelihood: An Empirical Study on the Role of Household Agency in South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(7), pages 1394-1406.
    18. Das, Mausumi, 2007. "Persistent inequality: An explanation based on limited parental altruism," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 251-270, September.
    19. Sung Soo Lim & Jongwook Lee, 2022. "Aspirations, Human Capital Investment, and the Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty in Indonesia," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 377-412, July.
    20. Dilip Mookherjee & Debraj Ray, 2002. "Is Equality Stable?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 253-259, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination
    • N3 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bos:iedwpr:dp-154. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Program Coordinator (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/decbuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.