| By: |
Fabio Blasutto (Department of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics);
David de la Croix (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)) |
| Abstract: |
Censorship makes new ideas less available to others, but also reduces the
share of people choosing to develop non-compliant ideas. We propose a new
method to measure the effect of censorship on knowledge growth, accounting for
the agents' choice between compliant and non-compliant occupations. We apply
our method to the Catholic Church's censorship of books written by members of
Italian universities and academies over the period 1400-1750. We highlight two
new facts: once censorship was introduced, censored authors were of better
quality than the non-censored authors, but this gap shrank over time, and the
intensity of censorship decreased over time. These facts are used to identify
the deep parameters of a novel endogenous growth model linking censorship to
knowledge diffusion and occupational choice. We conclude that censorship
reduced by 34% the average log publication per scholar in Italy, while adverse
macroeoconomic processes are responsible for another 9% reduction.
Interestingly, the induced reallocation of talents towards compliant
activities explains half the effect of censorship. |
| Keywords: |
Censorship, Upper-Tail Human Capital, Publications, Scholars, Early Modern Italy, Occupational Choice |
| JEL: |
J24 N33 O33 O43 |
| Date: |
2022–04–14 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2022011&r= |