Do factor endowments explain serfdom? Domar (1970) conjectured that high land-labor ratios caused serfdom by increasing incentives to coerce labor. But historical evidence is mixed and quantitative analyses are lacking. Using the Acemoglu-Wolitzky (2011) framework and controlling for political...

This paper analyzes the rural-urban migration of families in the Bohemian region of Pilsen in 1900. Using a new 1300-family dataset from the 1900 population census I examine the role of children's education in rural-urban migration. I find that families migrated to the city such that the...