Replication Data for: Do Inheritance Customs Affect Political and Social Inequality

Why are some societies more unequal than others? The French revolutionaries believed unequal inheritances among siblings to be responsible for the strict hierarchies of the Ancien Regime. To achieve equality, the revolutionaries therefore enforced equal inheritance rights. Their goal was to empower women and to disenfranchise the noble class. But, do equal inheritances succeed in leveling the societal playing field? We study Germany — a country with pronounced local-level variation in inheritance customs — and find that municipalities that historically equally apportioned wealth, to this day, elect more women into political councils and have fewer aristocrats in the social elite. Using historic data, we point to two mechanisms: wealth equality and pro-egalitarian preferences. In a final step, we also show that, counterintuitively, equitable inheritance positively predicts income inequality. We interpret this finding to mean that equitable inheritance levels the playing field by rewarding talent, not status.

为何部分社会的不平等程度高于其他社会？法国大革命的革命者曾将旧制度（Ancien Regime）下严格的等级体系归因于兄弟姐妹间的不均等继承。为实现平等，革命者随即推行均等继承权制度，旨在赋予女性政治权利并剥夺贵族阶级的政治特权。但均等继承能否真正营造公平的社会竞争环境？本研究以德国为研究对象——该国的继承习俗存在显著的地方层面差异——发现历史上实行财富均等分配的市镇，时至今日仍会选举更多女性进入市镇议会，且社会精英阶层中的贵族占比更低。依托历史数据，我们识别出两条作用机制：财富平等与亲平等主义偏好。最后，我们还得到一个反直觉的结论：公平继承与收入不平等呈正向相关。我们对此的解读为，公平继承通过奖励个人才能而非出身地位，实现了社会竞争环境的公平。