Rising wealth inequality is both a topic in recent policy discussion and in the social sciences. Despite the general interest in wealth concentration, we know only little about the largest privately held fortunes. To help fill this gap we analyze the historical origins of Germany's 1,032 largest...

Die zunehmende Vermögensungleichheit wird sowohl in aktuellen politischen Debatten als auch in den Sozialwissenschaften diskutiert. Trotz des breiten Interesses an der Vermögenskonzentration wissen wir bislang jedoch nur wenig über die größten Privatvermögen. Daher untersuchen wir die...

Can name analysis be used to study elite persistence in African contexts? Taking Sierra Leone as a case study, we use surnames to measure how two historical elites (descendants of settlers that comprise Sierra Leone's Krio community and members of Chiefly Ruling Houses) have fared over the...

We introduce a dynamic model that investigates the persistence and evolution of elite-dominated societies, where inherited political capital determines one's social standing. Our analysis highlights the critical role of the distribution of exit options in the evolution of political inclusiveness...

The combination of populism and protectionism emerged primarily from social class cleavages during the 20th century, to protect those affected by international economic competition. In the 21st century these cleavages have also involved an ethnic dimension, which regards the ethnic majority as...

We explore the long run socio-economic impact of a medieval urban governance setting , the king-owned towns (KOTs). For a town the KOT status implies special fiscal, commercial and administrative prerogatives between the community and the Crown, where such as status could be renovated, modified...

We examine the effect of elite connections on CEO pay and turnover decisions, using a large sample of Chinese listed firms. Our findings show that CEOs of private listed firms benefit from significantly higher salaries (a 25% increase), consistent with the resource dependence theory, whereas the...

Why do public policies change little over time in individual places, sometimes for centuries? We investigate different mechanisms for policy persistence. Several city mayors serving in democratic Weimar Germany were expelled by the Nazis in 1933, but re-installed by the Allies after World War...

We study the selection of the political elite in an autocratic state. Using detailed CV data on potential politicians in the German Democratic Republic, we track and quantify the position of individuals in the state hierarchy over time and exploit exogenous connections between individuals that...

Why do public policies change little over time in individual places, sometimes for centuries? We investigate different mechanisms for policy persistence. Several city mayors serving in democratic Weimar Germany were expelled by the Nazis in 1933, but re-installed by the Allies after World War...

Populism in modern Western democracies is on the rise. The existing literature concentrates on explanations based on the growing socio-economic and socio-cultural polarisation of modern societies driven by globalisation and individualisation on the one hand and the unresponsiveness of...

In this paper, we study the extent to which ministers engage in regional favoritism. We are the first to provide a comprehensive analysis of a larger set of the governing elite, not just focusing on the primary leader. We manually collect birthplaces of this governing elite globally. Combining...

Development effectiveness is an ever-growing concern for development partners. Particularly in a world of increasing budget constraints and trade-offs, it is crucial for development partners to maximize the results of any development intervention. While the importance of a locally-led approach...

Unequal representation can result from politicians' biased perception of public opinion. Existing research has focused on the numerical accuracy with which politicians estimate preferences distributions in surveys. This method ignores politicians' broader assumptions about public preferences;...

This working paper examines the evolving, complex and multifaceted relationship between the real estate industry and the education sector in China. The current crises in the private education and real estate sectors caused by policy shifts reflect the inter-meshing of the two sectors. The...

We examine the effects of an affirmative action policy at an elite Brazilian university that reserved 45 percent of admission slots for Black and low-income students. We find that marginally-admitted students who enrolled through the affirmative action tracks experienced a 14 percent increase in...

We introduce a dynamic model that investigates the persistence and evolution of elite-dominated societies, where inherited political capital determines one’s social standing. Our analysis highlights the critical role of the distribution of exit options in the evolution of political...

The current discursive development of renewable energy in news media is toward a direction of hyper-commodification, in which the process of creating a commodity is mainly subject to dominant political ideologies rather than a free market. Regarding the process of media reporting on global...

We study why a ruling minority (the elite) inevitably emerges from power struggles. Power struggles are modeled as iterative coalition formations where players use their power to form alliances and eliminate others without formal commitment. We show that when players can strategically relinquish...

Using detailed tournament data from four sources on 76 distinct managers coaching 34 teams in 1,580 matches covering ten seasons of the Italian male soccer premier league (“Serie A”), we provide field evidence on the impact of managerial decisions on team performance. We document that...

With the continuous upgrading of industrial technology and information technology, consumers can deeply participate in the whole life cycle of products and realize customized production. These unprecedented changes have brought consumers and manufacturers closer together, resulting in the...

Key date assessments are common in the contexts of firms’ hiring decisions, the educational system, and professional sports. In talent selection, it is very likely that there is a difference between current and potential performance levels. This paper analyses the Relative Age Effect (RAE) in...

We develop a theory of democratization that integrates both electoral calculations and economic incentives to explain the institutional choices of political actors. Left-leaning (liberal) politicians, who, given their location in the policy space, are more likely to receive the support of newly...

We show using a theoretical framework that embeds a voting model in a general-equilibrium model of a rural economy with two interest groups defined by land ownership that the effects of democratization - a shift from control of public resources by the landed elite to a democratic regime with...