David De La Croix
Research project
Did elite human capital trigger the industrial revolution? Insights from a new database of scholars from European universities
Project summary
Our aim is to determine whether elite knowledge and upper tail human capital (UTHC) were critical in triggering the rise of the West. We propose to build a database of a large sample of university professors and members of academies in Europe over the period 1400CE-1850CE. This database will integrate and harmonize the existing university specific databases, include the information available from published books and from electronic resources, and be completed by in depth research in universities for which the data is not yet available. To measure quality of scholars we will match this database with the existing databases of published books and historical biographies.Second, we will exploit the variation in the density, composition and quality of UTHC across time, space, fields, and the variation in longevity and migration of UTHC to measure the correlation between UTHC and the adoption of new techniques and better institutions, and the development of cities. We will perform causal identification using both instrumental methods and exogenous variations in the creation of universities and in the density of UTHC.Third, we will develop and test a new theory of the complementarity between elite knowledge and arti-sanal techniques, in order to identify departures from the efficient allocation of talents in the short and long-run. A second new theoretical model will be devoted to revealing the dynamic interactions between conservative and modern forces within universities and learned societies; the key trade-off here is between keeping the old thinking (satisfying vested interests) and developing new approaches and fields, allowing scholarly elites to change culture and promote economic development. We finally measure the relative importance of these theoretical mechanisms and how intellectual elites and society interact with our database.
