June 2020

Do Political Connections Affect Students’ Higher Education Decisions?

Maiting Zhuang*

What determines someone’s level of education? Economists tend to think about educational attainment as an investment decision. As the return to a particular type of degree goes up, e.g. in terms of access to better paid jobs, we should expect more people to obtain this type of degree. Studying this phenomenon with real data can be challenging, as there are rarely large and sudden changes to the returns to education. Education is also by no means the only way to obtain desirable jobs. Some people reach their positions not by virtue of their own skills and ability, but by having the right connections. Systematically measuring valuable connections poses another challenge. In this recent article, Maiting Zhuang studies how political connections affect whether students are more likely to obtain tertiary education, when the value of higher education increases...

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How Has Wealth Historically Evolved in Spain?

Miguel Artola Blanco, Luis Bauluz, Clara Martínez-Toledano*

Wealth has gained increasing attention from both the academic community and public opinion. Large swings in asset prices and the significance of cross-border positions within the Eurozone—to name just two recent significant economic trends—point to the importance of studying wealth aggregates. In this sense, Spain is a country that clearly deserves international scholars’ attention. Since entering the Eurozone in the late 1990s, the Spanish economy underwent a large housing boom followed by an equally exceptionally large bust. The country also experienced a sharp deterioration in its net foreign asset position and a more recent rise in public indebtedness. In this article, Miguel Artola Blanco, Luis Bauluz and Clara Martínez-Toledano track for the first time the historical evolution of Spanish national wealth since the beginning of the twentieth century...

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What climate policies do the French support?

Adrien Fabre*, Thomas Douenne*

In light of the Yellow Vest movement and the great public support it had, at the end of 2018 the government cancelled its planned increase in the fuel tax. Should we expect all environmental policy initiatives to meet the same end? In this article, Douenne and Fabre analyse the climate change policies that the French approved of at the height of the Yellow Vest movement, through the study of a representative sample of 3,000 people in February 2019. They analyse the knowledge, perceptions and beliefs related to climate change, examine opinions about emissions taxes and evaluate support for other climate policies. Their results show that the French generally share an understanding of the anthropogenic nature of climate change (72%); the proportion that does not is marginal (4%).

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The impact of industrialisation on education

Adrien Montalbo*

Understanding the effects of industrialisation on 19^th century economy and society has long been a major preoccupation in economic history. The influence of industry development on education has been a particular focus of attention in recent years. Numerous studies have researched the consequences of the industrial mode of production on education, especially at the primary level, which was increasingly rapidly in that era. As is often the case in this field, England was the laboratory, where the findings were hotly debated around a central question: “did industrialisation entail a reduction in school enrolments and literacy levels?” The question was underpinned by an assessment of the use of child labour, potentially more significant in industry than in agriculture. Thus, evaluating the complementarity of human capital and industry is essential to ...

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Does ethnicity determine whom to marry in sub-Saharan Africa?

Juliette Crespin-Boucaud*

Ethnic diversity, or fragmentation, is often thought of as one of the causes of African countries’ issues – civil wars, (perceived) ethnic favoritism, low growth, low levels of public good provision –, even though the manner in which ethnic identities are formed and maintained has received little attention. The view on such identities has often been unidimensional, with few surveys or censuses including categories for ‘‘multi-ethnic” or ‘‘mixed ancestry”, perpetuating the idea that ethnic identity is the allegiance to one group or tribe, and to one homeland. In this article, Juliette Crespin-Boucaud investigates whether ethnic and religious identity matters when considering whom to get married to: what is the share of people who marry within their group? As ethnic identity is determined by descent rules, one would expect interethnic marriages to be rare in societies where these cleavages are rigid…

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