Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. Introduction: Of Ruling Classes and Underclasses: Th e Laws of Social Mobility -- PART I. Social Mobility by Time and Place -- 2. Sweden: Mobility Achieved? -- 3. The United States: Land of Opportunity -- 4. Medieval England: Mobility in the Feudal Age --...

This paper explains how surname distributions can be used as a way to measure rates of social mobility in contemporary and historical societies. This allows for estimates of social mobility rates for any population for which we know just two facts: the distribution of surnames overall, and the...

A key challenge to theories of long-run economic growth has been linking the onset of modern growth with the move to modern fertility limitation. A notable puzzle for these theories is that modern growth in England began around 1780, 100 years before there was seemingly any movement to limit...