My research
Previews and discussion of research I’m working on, including the release of working papers and published articles.
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High school and university-level education was long an elite pursuit. However, with economic growth and rising technical complexity, the need for specialised knowledge and skills increased. In the lead-up to and during industrialisation, higher education systems admitted a growing number of students and diversified across an increasing range of courses and types of educational institutions.…
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“Upper tail knowledge”, embodied by knowledge elites, has been suggested to be a driving force of industrialization and development, yet measuring it remains problematic. Despite some recent innovations, much empirical work continues to rely on measures of “average” or “non-upper tail” human capital such as literacy and years of schooling. We thus turn to perhaps…
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Most creative professionals develop and refine their talents by learning from others. In most empirical settings, estimating how this learning process fosters quality is challenging. This paper explores the transmission of quality among music composers over more than seven centuries. How does a composer’s quality influence the quality of the composers they teach? Using a…
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This week, I get to offer a sneak peak on my work as a researcher. My colleagues and I have put out a working paper, describing our early efforts to produce a detailed measure of educational acquisition in Denmark from the 19th century onwards. Our longer-term ambition is to use this (and other) data to…
