Indirect Exposure to Colonial Education and Intergenerational
The Strength of Weak Ties: Indirect Exposure to Colonial Education and Intergenerational Mobility in Benin ⇤ Leonard Wantchekon† April 12, 2019 Abstract We use historical micro-level data from the first regional schools in colonial Benin to esti- mate the e↵ect of education on social mobility over three generations. Since school location and student cohorts were selected quasi-randomly, the e↵ect of education can be estimated by comparing the treated to the untreated living in the same village as well as those from villages with no school (Wantchekon et al. [2015]). We find positive treatment e↵ects of education on social mobility across three generations. Surprisingly, the e↵ect is strongest for descendants of grandparents who were exposed to education only through their social networks (the untreated living in villages with a school). We interpret this result as evidence of “the strength of weak ties” (Grannoveter [1977]). Finally, exploring the underlying mechanism of our results, we find that mobility from the first to the second generation is driven by parental aspiration, which is sustained by the risk attitudes and mobility of the third generation. ⇤This paper was prepared for the NYU Development Research Institute success project. I would like to thank James Hollyer, James Feigenbaum, James Habyarimana, Nathan Nunn, Dozie Okoye, Marc Ratkovic, Matthew Salganik, Stellios Michalopoulos, Marcella Alsan, and conference participants at ASE (SIER), Brown, George Washington University, NYU, Princeton, Toulouse School of Economics, Stanford University, and World Bank for comments. I would also like to thank the research team of Institute for Empirical Research in Political Economy (IERPE) in Benin, especially Romuald Anago, Kassim Assouma, Benjamin Dji↵a, Andre Gueguehoun, and Clement Litchegbe, for leading the data collection.
[Show full text]