Journal of Political Economy · 2026 · Victor Gay、Paula E. Gobbi、Marc Goñi
中文摘要
我们检验勒普莱（Le Play, 1875）的假说，即法国大革命通过强制在包括女性在内的所有子女之间平均分配继承财产，促成了法国早期的生育率下降。我们将大革命前地方继承规则的新数据与来自历史资料和众包家谱的个体层面人口数据相结合。双重差分（DID）和断点回归（RD）估计表明，大革命期间颁布的继承改革使完成生育率降低了0.5个孩子。一个关键机制在于人们希望避免土地在代际间细碎化。这些改革缩小了历史继承规则不同的地区之间的生育率差距，并对法国的人口转型作出了关键贡献。
Abstract
We test Le Play's (1875) hypothesis that the French Revolution contributed to France's early fertility decline by imposing equal partition of inheritance among all children, including women. We combine new data on local inheritance rules before the Revolution and individual-level demographic data from historical sources and crowdsourced genealogies. Difference-in-differences and regression-discontinuity estimates show that the inheritance reforms enacted during the Revolution reduced completed fertility by 0.5 children. A key mechanism was the desire to avoid land fragmentation across generations. These reforms closed the fertility gap between regions with different historical inheritance rules and crucially contributed to France's demographic transition.