Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Gregory Clark
Author-Name-First: Gregory
Author-Name-Last: Clark
Author-Name: Gillian Hamilton
Author-Name-First: Gillian
Author-Name-Last: Hamilton
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, University of California Davis
Title: Survival of the Richest: The Malthusian Mechanism in Pre-Industrial England
Abstract: Fundamental to the Malthusian model of pre-industrial society is the assumption that
 higher income increased reproductive success. Despite the seemingly inescapable
 logic of this model, the empirical support for this vital assumption in the preindustrial
 world is weak. Here we examine the relationship between income and net
 fertility using a large new cross-sectional data set on reproductive success, social
 status and income for England between 1585 and 1638. We find that for early
 seventeenth century England, a society seemingly close to a Malthusian equilibrium,
 wealth at death robustly predicts reproductive success. The richest male testators left
 behind double the number of children of the poorest. Consequently in the static
 English economy of this period social mobility was generally downwards. The
 strong association in England between wealth and reproductive success seems to
 also extend back to at least 1250.
Length: 46
File-URL: https://repec.dss.ucdavis.edu/files/qDAbKczR6SS9fx8kpkGuEArg/06-15.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Number: 229
Classification-JEL: 
KeyWords: england and economy
Creation-Date: 20060404
Handle: RePEc:cda:wpaper:229