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Leonard Wantchekon has developed a novel approach to study the effect of education on social mobility using historical micro-data from the first regional schools in late 19th century and early 20th century Benin. His research uncovers that the schools essentially functioned as natural experiments with a two-step hierarchical design creating arbitrary, but known, forms of spillovers.  He uses the data to reveal externalities in intergenerational social mobility that are driven by parental aspirations. Wantchekon is currently applying this applied micro approach to social history in his studies of the origins of gender norms, demand for education, and ethnic/racial inequalities in Africa and the U.S.

Leonard Wantchekon is a Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, as well as Associated Faculty in Economics. A scholar with diverse interests, Wantchekon has made substantive and methodological contributions to the fields of Political Economy, Economic History and Development Economics, and has also contributed significantly to the literatures on clientelism and state capture, resource curse and democratization.

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