Gender equality and economic growth in the long-run : a cliometric analysis Faustine Perrin To cite this version: Faustine Perrin. Gender equality and economic growth in the long-run : a cliometric analysis. Eco- nomics and Finance. Université de Strasbourg, 2013. English. NNT : 2013STRAB006. tel-01015528 HAL Id: tel-01015528 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01015528 Submitted on 26 Jun 2014 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. University of Strasbourg – Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies Bureau D’Économie Théorique et Appliquée – Laboratory of Economics and Management Gender Equality and Economic Growth in the Long-Run A Cliometric Analysis By Faustine PERRIN A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics – Docteur en Sciences Économiques Defended on December 2, 2013 JURY Directeurs de thèse : Claude DIEBOLT Directeur de Recherche, BETA-CNRS, Strasbourg Alessandro NUVOLARI Associate Professor, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy Rapporteurs externes : Joyce BURNETTE Professor, Wabash College, United-States Jacob WEISDORF Professor, University of Southern Denmark Rapporteur interne : Ragip EGE Professeur, Université de Strasbourg Examinateur : Luigi MARENGO Professor, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy Dissertation Committee Prof. Joyce BURNETTE Signature Prof. Claude DIEBOLT Signature Prof. Ragip EGE Signature Prof. Luigi MARENGO Signature Prof. Alessandro NUVOLARI Signature Prof. Jacob WEISDORF Signature i L’Université de Strasbourg n’entend donner aucune approbation ou improbation aux opinions émises dans les thèses. Ces opinions doivent être considérées comme propres à leurs auteurs. iii À Christophe v Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the guidance and the help of several persons. I wish to thank those who have been instrumental in the development of this thesis, who helped me in the completion of this task and who have supported me throughout these years. Following the order of events, I would like first to thank Ragip Ege. I thank him for the interest and considerations he had for me (and for his students overall) while I was an undergraduate student. I am deeply indebted to him for having advised me to contact Claude Diebolt about my research project. Hence I started to work under the supervision of Claude in the frame of my Master thesis in 2008. I am deeply grateful to Claude for everything he has done for me during these years. I thank him for his constant and unconditional support and for the Force he has inspired me throughout this journey. I cannot express in strong enough terms all my gratitude. I thank Patrick Llerena for encouraging me to attend the International Doctoral Program in Economics in Pisa. I have learned a lot. It has been an excellent experience and a great satisfaction for me to have been able to complete successfully the year and a half of lectures and exams. Beyond that, I met Alessandro Nuvolari, my Italian supervisor. I express my sincere gratitude to Alessandro for having accepted the supervision of this dissertation. In particular, I thank him for all his valuable recommendations, advices, ideas and references and for having always taken care of warning me in my research – about difficulties and problems I may encounter. These comments have been highly helpful and crucial in carrying out my work. Hence, I thank my two supervisors for their time, guidance, patience, and particularly for having confidence in the progression of my work. I am greatly aware of how lucky I am to have been framed, formed and guided by them. I thank them for the interest they have brought to my work but above all I wish to thank them for their human qualities. I wish to extend my profound gratitude to the members of my jury: Prof. Joyce Burnette, Prof. Jacob Weisdorf, Prof. Luigi Marengo and Prof. Ragip Ege, who provided their valuable time to participate to the evaluation process of this thesis. I thank them for accepting the invitation and for their comments that will contribute to enhance and deepen my work. vii Acknowledgements I thank the University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study (USIAS) for the support provided to the project Towards a Cliometric Theory of Unified Growth: The Role of Female Empowerment in which this thesis takes part. My PhD research has been carried out both at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa and at the University of Strasbourg. I feel fortunate to have been surrounded by supportive professors who, in one way or another, have been part of the completion of this dissertation. I am also grateful to Laurent Weil and Régis Blazy with whom I had the chance to work with during my teaching experience as ATER at the Institut D’Études Politiques. In particular, I thank Nicolas Eber. The joy and enthusiasm he has for his teaching was contagious and extremely motivational for me. And of course I thank Blandine (Zimmer) for all the help she provided me and for her kindness. It was a real pleasure to work with her, and with Pierre. I wish to thank my PhD fellow in Pisa, Ugo, Daniele, Emanuele and Giorgia. I thank Tania and Mafini for all the great moments we spent together, for their continued support and their friendship. I thank my team-mate Marco for always having been there for me in difficult times and for always having been here with me at best times. My special thanks go also to my PhD fellow in Strasbourg. I thank my mates of the office 126: Walliya, Qiao, Naouel, Tim and Ralph. I wish to thank also Oana, Christian, Xi, Nima and the PhD students of the offices 133, 148, 154, second and third floors. I thank them for having created an ideal working environment, for their support and all the good moments spent together. A special thank goes to Audrey and Fred for having taken great care of me and managed to make me laugh a lot during the final stage of thesis-writing, which was particularly challenging. I am especially grateful to, Mickaël Benaim, Mafini Dosso, Charlotte Le Chapelain, Frédérique Lang, Audrey-Rose Menard, Frédéric Olland, Marianne Perrin, Walliya Premchit, Lionel Rischmann, Paul Sharp and Tania Treibich for the care they devoted to the correction of this thesis. I am thankful to Danielle Genevé for her help and for always having been supportive. Je remercie mes amis d’avoir été patients et compréhensifs, et de m’avoir toujours soutenu. Merci à Oliv, Yoyo, Aline, Ju, Lulu, Gaël, Serdal, Lélé, Lo, Tom, Jen, Gilou, Élo, PA, Dudu, JC, Polo, Barbie, Oana, Manu et tous les autres ; merci à Laurène, Vincent et Cyrielle. Merci à Nus, Eric et Chacha. I cannot unfortunately mention everyone but I wish to thank those who enriched my life in these five years. And regardless of where you are today, I do not forget you. Une pensée va à mon filleul Thomas. Un merci tout spécial s’adresse aux membres de ma famille qui m’ont donné le courage d’aller au bout de cette aventure. Merci à ma grand-mère. Merci à mes parents et à ma sœur d’avoir cru en moi tout au long de ces années. Merci à Mika pour tout ce qu’il est. Quelques mots, ni quelques lignes ne suffiraient pas pour exprimer tout ce que je leur dois. Je me contenterais donc d’un simple « merci pour tout » ! viii Gender Equality and Economic Growth in the Long-Run. A Cliometric Analysis Abstract. – This thesis studies the long-run relationship between gender equality and economic growth. In particular, it aims at understanding and explaining the mechanisms and determinants underpinning the development process which allowed economies to move out of a long period of stagnation into a state of sustainable economic growth. The scientific objective is to check the validity of the central hypothesis that improving equality between men and women is a key ingredient of the demographic transition and of the process of socio-economic development. Quantitative and empirical analysis of this relationship is based on a renewed cliometric approach. Hence we aim at producing a quantitative projection of social sciences in the past, structured by economic theory, mathematical modeling, and informed the statistical and econometric methods. The projected innovation is to build a bridge between the theoretical models of growth and economic history. This new line of research between pure empiricism and abstract theory allows to interpret economic issues taking into account the past and in so doing, to understand more deeply the economic and social historical processes. Keywords: Cliometrics • Economic Growth • Demographic Transition • Human Capital• Gender Parità di genere e crescita economica di lungo termine. Un'analisi cliometrica Sintesi. – Questa tesi studia la relazione di lungo termine tra parità di genere e crescita economica. In particolare, essa ambisce a comprendere e spiegare i meccanismi e le determinanti sottostanti il processo di sviluppo che ha permesso alle economie di muovere da un lungo periodo di stagnazione verso la crescita economica sostenibile. L'obiettivo scientifico è di verificare la validità dell'ipotesi centrale secondo cui la maggiore parità tra uomo e donna è stata un ingrediente chiave della transizione demografica e del processo di sviluppo socio- economico. L'analisi quantitativa ed empirica di questa relazione si incentra su un nuovo approccio cliometrico.