Advertisement

Age-Heaping-Based Human Capital Estimates

Living reference work entry
First Online:
  • 585 Downloads

Abstract

In this article, we provide comprehensive insights into the implementation and the use of the age-heaping method. Age heaping can be applied to approximate basic numerical skills and hence basic education. We discuss the advantages and potential issues of different indicators, and we show the relationship of those indicators with literacy and schooling. The application of age-heaping-based indicators enables us to explore various topics on basic education such as the gender gap and the divergence of countries in the very long run. This well-established technique has been used by a great variety of authors who also show that numeracy has a large impact on growth.

Keywords

Age-Awareness Development Education Numeracy 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. A’Hearn B, Baten J, Crayen D (2006) Quantifying quantitative literacy: age heaping and the history of human capital. Economics working paper no.996, Universitat Pompeu FabraGoogle Scholar
  2. A’Hearn B, Baten J, Crayen D (2009) Quantifying quantitative literacy: age heaping and the history of human capital. J Econ Hist 69:783–808CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Acemoglu D, Johnson S, Robinson JA (2001) The colonial origins of comparative development: an empirical investigation. Am Econ Rev 91:1369–1401CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Acemoglu D, Johnson S, Robinson JA (2002) Reversal of fortune: geography and institutions in the making of the modern world income distribution. Q J Econ 117:1231–1294CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Armstrong A (1972) The use of information about occupation. In: Wrigley EA (ed) Nineteenth-century society: essays in the use of quantitative methods for the study of social data. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 191–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Bachi R (1951) The tendency to round off age returns: measurement and correction. B Int Statist Inst 33:195–221Google Scholar
  7. Baten J, Juif D (2013) A story of large land-owners and math skills: Inequality and human capital formation in long-run development 1820–2000. J Comp Econ. doi:10.1016/j.jce.2013.11.001Google Scholar
  8. Baten J, Ma D, Morgan S, Wang Q (2010) Evolution of living standards and human capital in China in the 18–20th centuries: evidences from real wages, age-heaping, and anthropometrics. Explor Econ Hist 47:347–359CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Baten J, Mumme C (2010) Globalization and educational inequality during the 18th to 20th centuries: Latin America in global comparison. Rev Hist Econ 28:279–305Google Scholar
  10. Becker SO, Woessmann L (2009) Was Weber wrong? A human capital theory of protestant economic history. Q J Econ 124:531–596CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Budd JW, Guinanne T (1991) Intentional age-misreporting, age-heaping, and the 1908 Old Age Pensions Act in Ireland. Popul Stud 45:497–518CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Botticini M, Eckstein Z (2007) From farmers to merchants, conversions and diaspora: human capital and Jewish history. J Eur Econ Assoc 5:885–926CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Charette MF, Meng R (1998) The determinants of literacy and numeracy, and the effect of literacy and numeracy on labour market outcomes. Can J Econ 31:495–517CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Clark G (2007) A farewell to alms: a brief economic history of the world. Princeton University Press, PrincetonGoogle Scholar
  15. Crayen D, Baten J (2010a) Global trends in numeracy 1820–1949 and its implications for long-term growth. Explor Econ Hist 47:82–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. Crayen D, Baten J (2010b) New evidence and new methods to measure human capital inequality before and during the industrial revolution: France and the US in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Econ Hist Rev 63:452–478CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. De Moor T, Van Zanden JL (2010) “Every woman counts”: a gender-analysis of numeracy in the low countries during the early modern period. J Interdiscipl Hist 41:179–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. Dell M (2010) The persistent effects of Peru’s mining mita. Econometrica 78:1863–1903CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. Duncan-Jones R (1990) Structure and scale in the Roman economy. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  20. Friesen J, Baten J, Prayon V (2013) Women count: gender (in-)equalities in the human capital development in Asia 1900–60. Working paper, University of TuebingenGoogle Scholar
  21. Galor O, Moav O, Vollrath D (2009) Inequality in landownership, the emergence of human-capital promoting institutions, and the Great Divergence. RevEcon Stud 76:143–179Google Scholar
  22. Glaeser EL, La Porta R, Lopez-de-Silanes F, Shleifer A (2004) Do institutions cause growth? J Econ Growth 9:271–303CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. Goldin C (1995) The U-shaped female labor force function in economic development and economic history. In: Schultz TP (ed) Investment in women’s human capital. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 61–90Google Scholar
  24. Juif D-T, Baten J (2013) On the human capital of ‘Inca’ Indios before and after the Spanish conquest. Was there a “pre-colonial legacy”? Explor Econ Hist 50:227–241CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  25. Juif D-T, Baten J (2014) Dangerous education? The human capital of Iberian and Latin American Jews and other minorities during the Inquisition. Working paper, University of TuebingenGoogle Scholar
  26. Manzel K, Baten J, Stolz Y (2012) Convergence and divergence of numeracy: the development of age heaping in Latin America from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Econ Hist Rev 65:932–960CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  27. Manzel K, Baten J (2009) Gender equality and inequality in numeracy: the case of Latin America and the Caribbean 1880–1949. Rev Econ Hist 27:37–74Google Scholar
  28. Mokyr J (1983) Why Ireland starved: a quantitative and analytical history of the Irish economy, 1800–1850. George Allen and Unwin, LondonGoogle Scholar
  29. Myers RJ (1954) Accuracy of age reporting in the 1950 United States census. J Am Stat Assoc 49:826–831CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  30. Ó Gráda C (2006) Dublin Jewish demography a century ago. Econ Soc Rev 37:123–147Google Scholar
  31. Reis J (2005) Economic growth, human capital formation and consumption in Western Europe before 1800. In: Allen RC, Bengtsson T, Dribe M (eds) Living standards in the past. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 195–227CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  32. Schofield RS (1973) Dimensions of illiteracy, 1750–1850. Explor Econ Hist 10:437–454CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  33. Stolz Y, Baten J (2012) Brain drain in the age of mass migration: does relative inequality explain migrant selectivity? Explor Econ Hist 49:205–220CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  34. Tollnek F, Baten J (2013) Farmers at the heart of the educational revolution: which occupational group developed human capital in the early modern era? Working paper, University of TuebingenGoogle Scholar
  35. Zelnik M (1961) Age heaping in the United States census: 1880–1950. Milbank Q 39:540–573CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.University of TuebingenTuebingenGermany
  2. 2.University of Tuebingen and CESifoTuebingenGermany

Personalised recommendations

Cite entry