Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/206402 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences No. 09-2019
Publisher: 
Universität Hohenheim, Fakultät Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Stuttgart
Abstract: 
How can agricultural inheritance traditions affect structural change and economic development in rural areas? The most prominent historical traditions are primogeniture, where the oldest son inherits the whole farm, and equal partition, where land is split and each heir inherits an equal share. In this paper, we provide a theoretical model that links these inheritance traditions to the local allocation of labor and capital and to municipal development. First, we show that among contemporary municipalities in West Germany, equal partition is significantly related to measures of economic development. Second, we conduct OLS and fuzzy spatial RDD estimates for Baden-Württemberg in the 1950s and today. We find that inheritance rules caused, in line with our theoretical predictions, higher incomes, population densities, and industrialization levels in areas with equal partition. Results suggest that more than a third of the overall inter-regional difference in average per capita income in present-day Baden Württemberg, or 597 Euro, can be explained by equal partition.
Subjects: 
inheritance rules
sectoral change
regional economic development
Baden-Württemberg
spatial inequalities
JEL: 
D02
D82
H11
H21
N93
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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