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Revolutionary Transition: Inheritance Change and Fertility Decline

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  • Victor Gay

    (IAST - Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Paula Gobbi

    (ULB - Université libre de Bruxelles, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR)

  • Marc Goñi

    (UiB - University of Bergen, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR)

Abstract

We test Le Play's (1875) hypothesis that the French Revolution contributed to France's early fertility decline. In 1793, a series of inheritance reforms abolished local inheritance practices, imposing equal partition of assets among all children. We develop a theoretical framework that predicts a decline in fertility following these reforms because of indivisibility constraints in parents' assets. We test this hypothesis by combining a newly created map of pre-Revolution local inheritance practices together with demographic data from the Henry database and from crowdsourced geneaologies in Geni.com. We provide difference-indifferences and regressiondiscontinuity estimates based on comparing cohorts of fertile age and cohorts too old to be fertile in 1793 between municipalities where the reforms altered and did not alter existing inheritance practices. We find that the 1793 inheritance reforms reduced completed fertility by half to one child, closed the pre-reform fertility gap between different inheritance regions, and sharply accelerated France's early fertility transition.

Suggested Citation

  • Victor Gay & Paula Gobbi & Marc Goñi, 2023. "Revolutionary Transition: Inheritance Change and Fertility Decline," Working Papers hal-04285818, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04285818
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04285818
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ridolfi, Leonardo, 2019. "Six Centuries of Real Wages in France from Louis IX to Napoleon III: 1250–1860," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(3), pages 589-627, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Colasurdo, Andrea & Omenti, Riccardo, 2024. "Using Online Genealogical Data for Demographic Research: An Empirical Examination of the FamiLinx Database," SocArXiv 62yxm, Center for Open Science.

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