Rethinking age-heaping, a cautionary tale from nineteenth century Italy

Working paper

A swelling stream of literature employs age-heaping as an indicator of human capital, more specifically of numeracy. We re-examine this connection in light of evidence drawn from nineteenth century Italy: census data, death records, and direct, qualitative evidence on age-awareness and numeracy. Though it can stand in as an acceptable proxy for literacy, our findings suggest that age-heaping is most plausibly interpreted as a broad indicator of cultural and institutional modernisation rather than a measure of cognitive skills.

Authors: A'Hearn, B; Delfino, A; Nuvolari, A

• Publication status: Published
• Publisher: University of Oxford
• Series: Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers
• Publication date: 2016-10-20
• Paper number: 148
• Keywords: age-heaping; numeracy; human capital; Italy