Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/246946 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
EHES Working Papers in Economic History No. 15
Publisher: 
European Historical Economics Society (EHES), s.l.
Abstract: 
Geography made rural society in the south-east of England unequal. Economies of scale in grain growing created a farmer elite and many landless labourers. In the pastoral north-west, in contrast, family farms dominated, with few hired labourers and modest income disparities. Engerman and Sokoloff (2012) argue that such differences in social structure between large plantations in the southern Americas, and family farming in the north, explain the rise of schooling in the north, and its absence in the south. We show, however, that rural literacy across England 1810-45 was not determined by geographically driven inequality. There were substantial differences in literacy by region, but driven by culture not geography. Geography is not destiny.
Subjects: 
Comparative regional history
European education history
human capital development
JEL: 
N93
N33
O15
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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