Thünens Theorie des "naturgemäßen Lohns". Zur Entdeckung des Grenzproduktivitätsprinzips in der Theorie der funktionellen Einkommensverteilung.

Das Modell des isolierten Staates bildet die Grundlage fuer Johann Heinrich von Thuenens Untersuchung zur Entlohnung des Produktionsfaktors Arbeit. Innerhalb des Modells wird formal und anhand ausgewaehlter Zahlenbeispiele der "naturgemaesse Lohn" ermittelt. Mit dem Ziel, Aspekte der Grenzproduktivitaetstheorie aufzuzeigen, werden seine Gedanken nachgezeichnet und der formale Zusammenhang hergeleitet. Fuer die Begruendung seiner Lohngleichung A = (a*p)^0.5 wird die Grenzproduktivitaet innerhalb der funktionellen Einkommensverteilung aufgezeigt. Abschliessend wird die Anwendbarkeit seiner Formel ausserhalb des Modells kritisch geprueft.naturgemäßer Lohn, Johann Heinrich von Thünen, Grenzproduktivität

Scholars and Literati at the University of Freiburg (1457–1800)

This note is a summary description of the set of scholars and literati who taught at the University of Freiburg from its inception in 1457 to the eve of the Industrial Revolution (1800)

Scholars and Literati at the University of Leiden (1575–1800)

This note is a summary description of the set of scholars and literati who taught at the University of Leiden from its inception in 1575 to the eve of the Industrial Revolution (1800)

Scholars and Literati at the University of Jena (1558–1800)

This note is a summary description of the set of scholars and literati who taught at the University of Jena from its inception in 1558 to the eve of the Industrial Revolution (1800)

Scholars and Literati at the University of Leipzig (1409–1800)

This note is a summary description of the set of scholars and literati who taught at the University of Leipzig from its inception in 1409 to the eve of the Industrial Revolution (1800)

Scholars and Literati at the University of Göttingen (1734–1800)

This note is a summary description of the set of scholars and literati who taught at the University of Göttingen from its inception in 1734 to the eve of the Industrial Revolution (1800). &nbsp

Scholars and Literati at the University of Gießen (1607–1800)

This note is a summary description of the set of scholars and literati who taught at the University of Gießen from its inception in 1607 to the eve of the Industrial Revolution (1800)

Leaders and laggards in life expectancy among European scholars from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century

When did mortality first start to decline, and among whom? We build a large, new data set with more than 30,000 scholars covering the sixteenth to the early twentieth century to analyze the timing of the mortality decline and the heterogeneity in life expectancy gains among scholars in the Holy Roman Empire. The large sample size, well-defined entry into the risk group, and heterogeneity in social status are among the key advantages of the new database. After recovering from a severe mortality crisis in the seventeenth century, life expectancy among scholars started to increase as early as in the eighteenth century, well before the Industrial Revolution. Our finding that members of scientific academies-an elite group among scholars-were the first to experience mortality improvements suggests that 300 years ago, individuals with higher social status already enjoyed lower mortality. We also show, however, that the onset of mortality improvements among scholars in medicine was delayed, possibly because these scholars were exposed to pathogens and did not have germ theory knowledge that might have protected them. The disadvantage among medical professionals decreased toward the end of the nineteenth century. Our results provide a new perspective on the historical timing of mortality improvements, and the database accompanying our study facilitates replication and extensions.Peer reviewe

The Academic Market and the Rise of Universities in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (1000-1800)

We argue that market forces shaped the geographic distribution of upper-tail human capital across Europe during the Middle Ages, and contributed to bolstering universities at the dawn of the Humanistic and Scientific Revolutions. We build a unique database of thousands of scholars from university sources covering all of Europe, construct an index of their ability, and map the academic market in the medieval and early modern periods. We show that scholars tended to concentrate in the best universities (agglomeration), that better scholars were more sensitive to the quality of the university (positive sorting) and migrated over greater distances (positive selection). Agglomeration, selection and sorting patterns testify to an integrated academic market, made possible by the use of a common language (Latin)

Are Scholars’ Wages Correlated with their Human Capital?

Throughout our project on premodern academia, we use a heuristic human capital index to measure each scholar’s quality. This index is built by combining several statistics from individual Wikipedia and Worldcat pages. The question we address here is whether this measure is correlated with the actual wages professors received. This note is a technical appendix to our paper on the academic market (De la Croix et al. 2020) but also has an interest as a stand-alone publication. There is considerable evidence that compensations for academic contractswentwell beyond paid salaries.1 They included payments from students, prebends,2 and many forms of in-kind benefits. Yet, it is interesting to examine the relationship between scholars’ human capital and existing data on monetary remunerations. Such remunerations have been used by Dittmar (2019) to show that professor salaries increased significantly relative to skilled wages after printing spread, with science professors benefiting from the largest salary increases. In the two sections below, we first review the available data on salaries, and argue that such data are imperfect proxies for the overall remuneration for academic services (i.e. a scholar’s market value). Keeping in mind such limitations, we thendocument a positive correlation between monetary income and scholars’ human capital.&nbsp