Children who grow up in more highly educated families have better labor market outcomes as adults than those who grow up in less educated families, but we do not know whether this is because education bestows parents with skills that make them better parents or because unobservable endowments...

The English Old Poor Law, which before 1834 provided welfare to the elderly, children, the improvident, and the unfortunate, was a bête noire of the new discipline of Political Economy. Smith, Bentham, Malthus and Ricardo all demanded its abolition. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, drafted...