This paper draws on a unique data set, hojok (household registers), to estimate numeracy levels in Korea, 1550–1630, and evidence on Japan and China from the early modern period until 1800. We found that a substantial share of East Asians rounded their ages to multiples of five. However, the...

Chinese urban workers are no longer shielded from market forces. They are bearing the brunt of the adjustment costs as enterprises shed redundant workers. This paper focuses on the role of education in determining labor market outcomes in China's rapidly changing urban labor environment. The...

Chinese investors are now the largest number of foreign investors in US residential and commercial real estate. Many buy in upscale, exclusive markets. It is little known, however, that in the past Chinese faced severe property discrimination in the US. This paper traces three eras of Chinese...

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 banned Chinese immigration and institutionalized discrimination against Chinese in U.S. society. This study examines the impact of institutional discrimination on the assimilation of Chinese by exploiting the passage of the Act and the state-level variation in...

This paper first draws on a unique data set, hojok (household registers), to estimate numeracy levels in Korea from the period 1550–1630. We add evidence from Japan and China from the early modern period until 1800 to obtain a human capital estimate for East Asia. We find that numeracy was...

Our paper provides a comparative perspective on the development of public primary education in four of the largest developing economies circa 1910: Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). These four countries encompassed more than 50% of the world's population in 1910, but remarkably few of...

Our paper provides a comparative perspective on the development of public primary education in four of the largest developing economies circa 1910: Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). These four countries encompassed more than 50 percent of the worldÂ’s population in 1910, but remarkably...

Our paper provides a comparative perspective on the development of public primary education in four of the largest developing economies circa 1910: Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). These four countries encompassed more than 50 percent of the world’s population in 1910, but remarkably...

In his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Adam Smith (1776) considered the phenomenon of division of labor so enormously significant for the creation of a nation’s wealth that he devoted the first three chapters of his book to an investigation of this process. This is...

We construct a novel dataset of human capital accumulation in China and India from 1900 to 2020 by combining historical records and educational reports to analyze the role of education in economic divergence. Three key findings emerge. First, China pursued a bottom-up strategy, first expanding...