Abstract
Path dependence in occupations refers to the observed occupational distribution in a population or in a sub-population at a point in time that depends on changes that occurred years or centuries earlier. Path dependence in occupations can be the outcome of the cumulative concentration of certain productive activities in specific regions over time, it can emerge through the effect of parental income or wealth on offspring’s occupations and incomes, or it can be the outcome of group effects. Some historical cases are selected to illustrate the various mechanisms through which path dependence in occupations can emerge or disappear.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Arthur, W. 1989. Increasing returns, competing technologies and lock-in by historical small events: The dynamics of allocation under increasing returns to scale. Economic Journal 99: 116–131.
Banerjee, A., and A. Newman. 1991. Risk-bearing and the theory of income distribution. Review of Economic Studies 58: 211–235.
Banerjee, A., and A. Newman. 1993. Occupational choice and the process of development. Journal of Political Economy 101: 274–298.
Becker, G., and N. Tomes. 1979. An equilibrium theory of the distribution of income and intergenerational mobility. Journal of Political Economy 87: 1153–1189.
Blume, L., and S. Durlauf, ed. 2005. The economy as an evolving complex system III: Current perspectives and future directions. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Botticini, M. 2003. Commercial and trade diasporas. In Oxford encyclopedia of economic history. New York: Oxford University Press.
Botticini, M., and Z. Eckstein. 2005. Jewish occupational selection: education, restrictions, or minorities? Journal of Economic History 65: 922–948.
Botticini, M., and Z. Eckstein. 2006. From farmers to merchants, voluntary conversions and diaspora: A human capital interpretation of Jewish history, Discussion Paper No. 5571. London: CEPR.
Bowles, S. 2006. Institutional poverty traps. In Poverty traps, ed. S. Bowles, S. Durlauf, and K. Hoff. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bowles, S., S. Durlauf, and K. Hoff, ed. 2006. Poverty traps. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bowles, S., and H. Gintis. 2002. The inheritance of inequality. Journal of Economic Perspectives 16(3): 3–30.
Carter, L., and R. Margo. 2007. Feminization of teaching in the United States. In Gender and education in the United States, ed. B. Bank. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Chiswick, R. 2005. The occupational attainment of American Jewry: 1990–2000, IZA Discussion Paper No. 1736. Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labour.
Collins, W. 1997. When the tide turned: immigration and the delay of the Great Black migration. Journal of Economic History 57: 607–632.
Collins, W. 2000. African-American economic mobility in the 1940s: A portrait from the Palmer Survey. Journal of Economic History 60: 756–781.
Collins, W. 2001. Race, Roosevelt, and wartime production: Fair employment in World War II labor markets. American Economic Review 91: 272–286.
David, P. 1985. Clio and the economics of QWERTY. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 75(2): 332–337.
David, P. 1994. Why are institutions the ‘carriers of history’? Path dependence and the evolution of conventions, organizations, and institutions. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics 5: 205–220.
Donohue, J. III, and J. Heckman. 1991. Continuous versus episodic change: the impact of the civil rights policy on the economic status of blacks. Journal of Economic Literature 29: 1603–1643.
Durlauf, S. 2006. Groups, social influences and inequality: a membership theory perspective on poverty traps. In Poverty traps, ed. S. Bowles, S. Durlauf, and K. Hoff. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Eckstein, Z., and I. Zilcha. 1994. The effects of compulsory schooling on growth, income distribution and welfare. Journal of Public Economics 54: 339–359.
Fujita, M., P. Krugman, and A. Venables. 1999. The spatial economy: Cities, regions, and international trade. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Galor, O., and J. Zeira. 1993. Income distribution and macroeconomics. Review of Economic Studies 60: 35–52.
Goldin, C. 1986. Monitoring costs and occupational segregation by sex: A historical analysis. Journal of Labor Economics 4: 1–27.
Goldin, C. 1990. Understanding the gender wage gap: An economic history of American women. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Goldin, C., and L. Katz. 2003. The ‘virtues’ of the past: Education in the first hundred years of the new republic, Working Paper No. 9958. Cambridge, MA: NBER.
Greif, A. 1989. Reputation and coalitions in medieval trade: Evidence on the Maghribi traders. Journal of Economic History 49: 857–882.
Krugman, P. 1991a. History and industry location: The case of the manufacturing belt. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 81(2): 80–83.
Krugman, P. 1991b. Increasing returns and economic geography. Journal of Political Economy 99: 483–499.
Kuznets, S. 1960. Economic structure and life of the Jews. In The Jews: their history, culture, and religion, ed. L. Finkelstein. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.
Liebowitz, S., and S. Margolis. 1995. Path dependence, lock-in, and history. Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization 11: 205–226.
Long, J., and J. Ferrie. 2005. A tale of two labor markets: Intergenerational occupational mobility in Britain and the United States since 1850, Working Paper No. 11253. Cambridge, MA: NBER.
Loury, G. 1981. Intergenerational transfers and the distribution of earnings. Econometrica 49: 843–867.
Loury, G. 2002. The Anatomy of Racial Inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Margo, R. 1990. Race and schooling in the South, 1880–1950: An economic history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mookherjee, D., and D. Ray. 2003. Persistent inequality. Review of Economic Studies 70: 369–393.
Mookherjee, D., and D. Ray. 2002. Contractual structure and wealth accumulation. American Economic Review 92: 818–849.
Perlmann, J., and R. Margo. 2001. Women’s work? American schoolteachers, 1650–1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rotella, E. 1981. From home to office: US women at work, 1870–1930. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press.
Shelling, T. 1971. Dynamic models of segregation. Journal of Mathematical Sociology 1: 143–186.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2018 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Botticini, M., Eckstein, Z. (2018). Path Dependence and Occupations. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2517
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2517
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95188-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95189-5
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences