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of people with a factor that normally predicts both higher earnings and educational attainment, yet with average attainment in both these respects. This seems a troubling implication of current estimates of social mobility for different aspects of social status. In contrast the model of one underlying measure of social competence that is suggested here would predict that the families scoring highly on this underlying measure, the regression to the mean would be the same for all aspects of status: cognitive abilities, non-cognitive abilities, earnings, wealth, education, occupations and longevity. The different rates of mobility seen on this individual measures reflects just how much random component there is linking them to underlying social competence.
Surnames To investigate the rate of regression to the mean of this deeper underlying social status (and by implication the long run rate of regression to the mean of income, wealth, occupational status and education) this study traces people not through individual family linkages, but through surnames over multiple generations. In many societies surnames are inherited unchanged from one generation to the next, typically through the patriline. If at some generation surnames differ in social status, we can then trace through surnames the descendants of the current generation for many generations. As long as there is nothing peculiar about the path of descent of surnames, the surnames link the status of groups of families many generations in the past with their descendants in the present. 5 When initially formed, surnames in many societies were associated with social status. For example, in England some high status land owners already possessed surnames at the time of the Domesday Book of 1086, which listed the major landholders of England. Most of these people were the Norman, Breton and Flemish followers of Duke William of Normandy, who seized the throne of England in 1066. These surnames thus constitute a distinctive subset of modern English surnames: Baskerville, Beaumont, D’Arcy, de Vere, Mandeville, Montgomery, Vernon, and Villiers, for example. In England also about 10 percent of surnames derive from the occupations of the original holder, and these occupations had a range of social statuses: Smith, Baker, Shepherd, Clark, Chamberlain, Butler. In Sweden, surnames started as patronyms which changed with each generation. Sven, son of Lars, was Sven Larsson. But his son Gunnar would be Gunnar Svensson. For the ordinary people patronyms did not become fixed across generations until the late nineteenth century. However, from at least the 17 th century two groups of high status individuals were acquiring permanent and distinctive surnames. The first were those who attended universities, who adopted latinized or grecified surnames such as Celsius, Linnaeus, and Melander. The second was the aristocracy, often imported mercenary commanders, who imported surnames from 5Olivetti and Paserman, 2012, find that there is no difference in the occupational status of sons-in-law compared to sons in the USA 1850-1930, so that there is no sign that the social mobility along the patriline is any slower than in the matriline.
Page 1 and 2: Surnames and a Theory of Social Mob
Page 3 and 4: Education Correlation - b Earnings
Page 5 and 6: Table 1: Estimates of b from Surnam
Page 7 and 8: However, we do not typically direct
Page 9 and 10: Table 2: Correlations between the A
Page 11 and 12: Table 3: Regression to the mean con
Page 13 and 14: Figure 4: Average Earnings by Occup
Page 15: Table 4: Persistence in Education A
Page 19 and 20: In the years 1890-1980 fertility wa
Page 21 and 22: Table 6: b Values Between Death Gen
Page 23 and 24: Density Relative Frequency Figure 6
Page 25 and 26: Table 8: Relative Representation by
Page 27 and 28: we have met this condition. Thus th
Page 29 and 30: Relative Representation Top Tax Rat
Page 31 and 32: Sweden Table 10 summarizes the surn
Page 33 and 34: and downwards mobility. However, th
Page 35 and 36: estimates. Thus in the most recent
Page 37 and 38: For the Black population convergenc
Page 39 and 40: To measure social mobility rates we
Page 41 and 42: where τ is the correlation of abil
Page 43 and 44: England has less extensive public s
Page 45 and 46: Some recent studies of the outcomes
Page 47 and 48: dominance and genic interactions wh
Page 49 and 50: Another prediction if genes are imp
Page 51 and 52: ecruit selectively from the existin
Page 53 and 54: of each other. Thus the Protestant
Page 55 and 56: The census also suggests that this
Page 57 and 58: If Jewish populations interacted wi
Page 59 and 60: But the situation in Egypt is echoe
Page 61 and 62: Table 14: Characteristics of Travel
Page 63 and 64: % of surnames % of surnames Figure
Page 65 and 66: The recent addition to the travelli
Page 67 and 68:
The likely resolution to this puzzl
Page 69 and 70:
Relative Representation Figure 26:
Page 71 and 72:
Source Papers Clark, Gregory. 2012.
Page 73 and 74:
Cagney, Kathleen A., and Diane S. L
Page 75 and 76:
International comparisons and fifty
Page 77 and 78:
Olshanky, S. Jay et al. 2012. “Di
Page 79:
Ward, David L., Charles D. Coleman,
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