The Rule of One-Third guaranteed wives one-third of their husband's estate upon marital dissolution through death or divorce. We document the historical ubiquity of this legal construct and show that without a wife's residual claim on her husband's estate, children's outcomes are imperiled....

Recent biomedical research shows that roughly three-quarters of cognitive abilities are attributable to genetics and family environment. This paper presents a theory of growth in which human capital is determined by inheritable factors and family size. The distribution of income is shown to...

Under the educational sorting hypothesis, an environment in which some individuals are constrained from entering university will be characterized by increased pooling at the high school graduation level, as compared to an environment with greater university access.This results because some...