Nepo great-great-great-grand-babies

We all know this continent has major issues with social mobility. But having a rich ancestor from *six centuries ago* shouldn't make it more likely that you're rich today... should it? This week we speak to Guglielmo Barone, one of the economists behind some fascinating research into this question in Florence. We're also talking about Ursula von der Leyen's 'jobs for the boys' scandal and the road to a shared European cycling policy.

Guglielmo is a professor of economics at the University of Bologna. You can find his study on intergenerational mobility in Florence here, and an article he co-wrote about the research here.

This week's recommendations: 'Today in Focus - Should the UK stop arming Israel?' and 'Have You Heard George's Podcast - Francophone Pt. 1'.
Other resources for this episode:

Social mobility in Europe across generations - EU Science Hub

Intergenerational mobility in the UK - Institute for Fiscal Studies'

What is the point of inheritance tax?' - The New Statesman'

Von der Leyen accused of playing favourite over EU SMEs envoy nomination' - EURACTIV
The European Declaration on Cycling

'How safe is walking and cycling in Europe' - European Transport Safety Council Eurobarometer - Mobility and transport, 2019

The Copenhagenize Index
'Paris’s Picasso Museum Will Show Work by Françoise Gilot in Permanent Collection Galleries for the First Time' - ARTnews

Producers: Katz Laszlo and Wojciech Oleksiak

Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak

Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

INTRODUCTION - 00’22”

DOMINIC: Hello, and welcome to the Europeans. We've got another strange mix of European stories for you today that will hopefully help us all understand a bit more about this weird continent that Katy and I live on. Hi, Katy. 

KATY: Hello! 

D: how are you over there in Paris?

K: Out of breath because I just had to rush to get here, the latest in my badly organised recordings. But I'm here, and we're recording! So all good.

D: Well done.

K: I actually wanted to launch the latest of my crowdsourced European culture and investigations, if I may. 

D: Oh, yeah, go for it. 

K: So this time, I want to know about what our friends in the US would refer to as bachelor parties or bachelorette parties. 

D: Oh, so stag dos? 

K: Yeah, what in the UK are called stag dos and hen dos. Basically a party before you get married. Because I have a few people in my life getting married right now, and I've been wondering what the situation is in different countries and whether there's like different traditions involved in these events. In France, they're called burials or funerals, like a bachelor party would be an ‘enterrement de vie de garçon’, or literally a funeral for the life of the boy before he becomes a man. And there was a funny misunderstanding this week, because my husband was going to one of these, but the person he was speaking to misunderstood and thought he was going to a funeral, and was like, ‘I'm so sorry. That's terrible.’ So anyway, I'm curious about how people mark the imminent start of married life with their friends in various countries.

D: In Dutch we call it a ‘vrijgezellenfeest’. But maybe producer Katz can help me translate what that actually means? Vrijgezellen…? Oh, they can't hear you, can they. She just said in my ear that she thought for many years, it was about free gazelles. It's not that. But it's something to do with, ‘free of company’.

K: Free of gazelles would make it more like the UK ‘stag do’. Like, large mammal-based. 

D: That's true!

K: Anyway, write in and let me know what this thing is called in your country and whether any sort of weird rituals are involved in it. Hello at europeanspodcast.com. Large mammals aside, what are we talking about this week? 

D: Well, this week, we're going to be looking into how wealth is passed down within families from generation to generation. And the reason why we're talking about this is because of an eye-catching study we stumbled across from a pair of Italian academics who've published evidence from Florence suggesting that the wealth of our ancestors around 600 years ago has an effect on your chances of being wealthy today. That's 600 years of benefiting or struggling thanks to the richness or poverty of your ancestors. Quite intense.

K: We should call them neoo grand, grand, grand, grand grand babies, these people.

D: Right? Anyway, it's really fascinating research. So keep listening to find out how they made that calculation over 600 years, when we speak to Guglielmo Barone later in the show. But first, of course, it's time to find out who's had a good week and who's had a bad week in Europe.

BAD WEEK - 03’32”

K: Who has had a bad week, Dominic? 

D: It's been a bad week for President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, after her campaign to be chosen as president for another term had a bit of a stumble. There's a scandal that's bubbling up around allegations of giving a job to a political ally without following the proper procedure. I guess I should start by attempting to very briefly, and as simply as possible, reminding everyone who the president of the European Commission is and how they get appointed.

K: Looking forward to this, go on.

D: Okay, a very quick, simplified primer. The European Commission is a part of the EU that isn't directly elected by the people of Europe. The people of Europe elect their members of the European Parliament, we have elections for that coming up in June. And of course, the people of Europe also elect their own national politicians which form governments. The European Commission is the executive branch of the European Union, so kind of like EU-wide ministers. They propose the legislation that is then voted on by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU.

K: What’s the Council? 

D: I am not going to explain what the Council is now. We're just going to leave that, okay? It's not important today. 

K: Very briefly, it's the national government ministers, right?

D: Yes, it is. Why do you have to make everything so complicated?

K: Why did the EU have to make everything so complicated? Don't blame me! 

D: It's true. Each EU country has one European commissioner proposed by their own country's government. And the president of the Commission is selected with a lot of backroom wrangling. This all happens after the European Parliament elections in June, wrangling that’s done by the European political party groupings, the national governments, and of course, it should at least somewhat reflect the results of the European parliamentary elections, because the Parliament also has to vote to confirm the president. Ursula – 

K: Do you think anyone’s still listening?

D: Is anyone still there? 

K: No, don't worry. The audience of this podcast is made up of mostly nerds, so I think we're okay.

D: Okay. I'm nearly there. Ursula von der Leyen, the current president of the European Commission, comes from the centre-right European People's Party political grouping, and they look like they will probably comfortably be the biggest party grouping in the European Parliament after the elections in June. So seeing as she has been appointed as the official lead candidate for her party grouping and seeing as she is already in the job, her chances of being reappointed have been seen to be pretty high.

K: It's that whole incumbent’s advantage thing, right?

D: It is, yeah. On the other hand, fellow EU nerds listening will remember that von der Leyen herself came out of nowhere when she got this job back in 2019. After those European Parliamentary elections, she had not been the lead candidate of her party. She was kind of parachuted in as a compromise candidate after the lead candidate of her party, Manfred Weber was rejected by EU leaders, so – 

K: For being too boring? 

D: Official reason: for being too boring. It was also because people like Macron thought he didn't have enough leadership experience. But it shows that anything can happen after the election in June, even if she has up until now been seen by many as a bit of a shoo-in for getting this job again. 

K: Yeah, I mean, from what I've read, people are sort of proceeding on the assumption that she's still going to be there for another five years, no? 

D: Yeah, everything had been going pretty swimmingly until this past week when she hit a bit of a bump in the road. A story emerged towards the end of last week on the blog of Italian journalist David Carretta suggesting that there was a rebellion brewing from within her own Commission. Four of her most senior Commissioner colleagues had signed a letter demanding answers about the appointment of a political ally of hers, Markus Pieper, in the job of Envoy for Small and Medium Business Enterprise. 

K: Okay…

D: And Pieper isn't only from the same European political grouping as von der Leyen, but actually from the same German political party, the CDU. The job in question, this Envoy for Small and Medium Business Enterprise, might sound like the job from hell to me, but it's actually a very prestigious and very well-paid job. The salary is being reported differently depending on where I look, but it seems he will be getting somewhere between 15,000 and 17,000 euros per month before tax.

K: Per month?! 

D: Yes.

K: 17 grand a month?

D: Yes. 

K: Hang on a sec. Times 12… Oh, that's like 200… Is that what 200 grand looks like per month? This is how far I am from having this salary. 

D: Yeah, I know.

K: I thought 17,000 a month would equate to like an annual salary of 5 million euros. I mean, that is still multiple, multiple times my salary, so… 

D: Well, I think –  

K: Okay, wow. 

D: What we've learned here is Katy should not be given the job of Envoy for Small and Medium Business Enterprise.

K: Maybe I should, I'm more like the common people, Dominic.

D: That’s true. And you have done a very good job at doing our accounts. Thank you, Katy. 

K: You're welcome. 

D: But yeah, when so much money is being spent on this position, it's definitely in the interest of European citizens that these jobs are handed out with the proper process. And the accusation is that Pieper was offered the job over other candidates who were more qualified for the job, as a political favour.

K: I mean, we've been making this podcast for a few years now. And the Commission often seems to be a bit of a black box, like we don't often know what's going on inside it. Us actually finding out about this kind of infighting – like, that's going to be quite rare, no? 

D: Yeah, it is quite unusual, because it's an institution that's run on the principle of collegiality. So there's collective decision making and the commissioners make decisions that are meant to be void of partisan pressure. But of course, there's an election coming up. So some are viewing this rebellion from these four senior commissioners as a way of trying to politically weaken von der Leyen in the run-up to the election. 

K: Interesting. The plot thickens. 

D: And these four senior commissioners could be seen to be having a political interest in weakening von der Leyen. They are all from different parties to her. One of them, Nicolas Schmidt, the jobs commissioner, is actually the lead candidate of the centre-left group. And another, Thierry Breton, is a powerful voice in the liberal faction of the European Union. Von der Leyen will probably need the support of these political groupings if she is going to get another five year term. So it's quite a convenient moment for them to start attacking her. But that doesn't mean that the attacks don't have substance. Reports emerged in the news outlet Euractiv last week suggesting that two other female candidates for this job in question, the Envoy for Small and Medium Business Enterprise, Czechia’s Martina Dlabajova and Sweden's Anna Stellinger, they both scored at least 30% higher than Pieper in the assessments for the job. 

K: Huh…

D: That piece also states that Thierry Breton, the commissioner for the internal market, was apparently not consulted about the final decision. Neither were the commissioners’ chiefs of staff. This is all despite the fact that von der Leyen has previously said that she would fight for better representation of women in the top leadership jobs in the EU.

K: Especially since these two women appear to have been much better qualified than this guy as well. 

D: Yeah, it doesn't look great at the moment, especially because this report in Euractiv also pointed out that the appointment was approved just three weeks before von der Leyen secured the critical support of the German CDU party for a second term as Commission president, the CDU, as I will remind you, being both her party and the party of this Markus Pieper dude who got the job. So I can understand why there are some questions that now need answering. And perhaps von der Leyen has very clear answers and the case will be closed. Or maybe this will develop into a full blown scandal. Her allies claim it is simply party politics, but it's too early to say where this will go now.

K: Is there going to be any kind of formal investigation into this?

D: At the time of recording, on Tuesday, we don't actually know, but it doesn't seem like it's gonna go away, even if that is what von der Leyen was hoping for when she officially launched her election campaign in Greece this past weekend, vowing to fight back against the far-right and Putin's friends. Members of the European Parliament have sent an official request for answers to questions about this appointment, and there’s scheduled to be a debate and vote about the appointment in the European Parliament this week. It might actually have happened by the time you're listening to this podcast. So have a quick Google, or actually, head to our Twitter account, I promise to post any big updates on our Twitter page as they emerge this week, @europeanspod. 

K: [COUGHS]

D: Everything okay there?

K: I’m good, sorry. Still a lingering cough from last week. 

D: Okay. She may be in some trouble. But on the other hand, she has been relatively popular as a Commission president, she has been seen as a relatively safe pair of hands in very unstable times. Many people will decide that continuity is better than the alternative, especially with the far-right predicted to have a much larger presence in the European Parliament after the next election. Many on the centre and left may be willing to stick with her so that the centre-right aren't tempted to put up an alternative whose politics is further to the right than hers. But honestly, I don't know. I really shouldn't predict anything. It's moving very quickly, and I especially shouldn't predict anything considering there's probably going to be developments by the time this podcast has come out. So yeah, we'll see. It's been a bad week for Ursula von der Leyen. 

K: In a way I kind of hope this scandal puts some pressure on her to actually launch a decent campaign. I mean, like, who even noticed that she'd launched this campaign last week? It's been quite hard to get excited about Ursula von der Leyen as returning candidate. Not that I think I ever would. But like until now, she hasn't needed anyone to kind of think more about her than like, ‘Oh, yeah, she's kind of mostly steered the ship in a quite steady way through COVID, the war in Ukraine – she has, as you say, been a fairly safe pair of hands. But I feel like now she might be motivated to actually campaign a little bit harder than that. And maybe that's a good thing. 

D: Yeah. On the other hand, she isn't directly elected. So it's a bit of a weird campaign to run. 

K: That's true. 

D: And also it seems like centrist or vaguely centrist politicians at the moment seem to win by making it about the fear of the opposite. So –  

K: Yeah.

D: Yeah, that seems to be a strategy that's working, which is not very exciting, and a bit depressing, to be honest. But that's where we are. 

K: Yeah, I'd really like us to come back in the coming weeks to like, what this campaign is looking like if you zoom out across Europe. Because it's true, like the main message from the centre and left seems to be like, ‘Would you like to avoid the far-right getting into power? If so, vote for us.’ Rather than, ‘We've got loads of great ideas.’ 

D: Yeah. 

K: Wouldn't it be nice if there were some great ideas?

D: Instead, it's just, ‘We've got all these watered down ideas that work great, but we're not actually gonna be able to do anything!’ Boop, boop.

K: Inspiring!

GOOD WEEK - 14’55”

D: Who's had a good week, Katy?

K: I'll try and inspire you a little bit with this. It has been a good week for cyclists. As a keen user of two-wheeled vehicles yourself, Dominic, you'll be pleased to know that last week saw the signing of the European Declaration on Cycling in Brussels. 

D: Yay. 

K: It has been signed by all three of the big institutions, the ones you mentioned. And it has been hailed by the European Cyclists’ Federation as the most ambitious EU initiative to encourage cycling in history. The declaration includes lots of different promises to do things that make life better and safer for Europe’s cyclists, whether you're someone that just cycles occasionally, or one of those hardcore, lycra-wearing people that, you know, casually cycles across entire countries on vacation. I think you're crazy, but you do you. Anyway, whatever kind of cyclist you are, EU institutions have just made 36 different commitments to making your life easier, including encouraging cycle paths that are separate from the road, wherever that's possible; encouraging better bike parking; and supporting more charging stations, for those of you who write electric bikes.

D: Encouraging better bike parking – that sounds, like, very vague. 

K: Yes. 

D: Does this have any legal standing or commitments or budget? 

K: No, it's kind of like a really nice PDF document. And that is quite disappointing, because the European Parliament apparently wanted it to include specific targets and legal obligations. But the Commission and the Council said no. However, before you become completely cynical and walk away thinking this is just lots of nice words about cycling, the declaration has been really welcomed by campaigners as quite a significant step forward. This is the first time we've ever had anything that looks like a shared EU policy on cycling. And that's kind of cool. 

D: Is cycling one of those areas that the EU can legislate on? I know there are some areas they can and they can't.

K: The EU is not technically in charge of cycling policy, no. It's a national policy area. So like, the government of Bulgaria can have its own policy, completely separate from, you know, Spain, or Sweden, or whatever. But of course, cycling comes into all kinds of policy areas that are within the EU remit, stuff to do with the environment, stuff to do with, like, road safety regulations. Last year, for example, this quite important new EU law came into force that means that new trucks have to be designed with much smaller blind spots where they can't see what's behind them. That's something that really helps cyclists. There's also quite a lot of EU funding available for cycling infrastructure, including all of that post-COVID recovery money. Overall, about 2 billion euros of EU money was spent on cycling between 2014 and 2020. And that's probably going to go up over the next few years, because some of these big EU pots of money now have conditions attached to them, stuff like, you know, at least 30% of this big pot of money has to be spent on stuff that helps the environment, for example, and cycling infrastructure will fall under that. So there are plenty of cycling-adjacent EU policies. There just hasn't been a joined-up unified policy on cycling until now.

D: My cynicism is slowly fading away.

K: Well, hang on to a bit of it. As always with Europe, there should be a grain in there somewhere. 

D: I mean, there are clearly big differences in terms of cycling infrastructure and your experience as a cyclist in general, depending on where you are in Europe, right? I mean, I live in one of the best countries to be a cyclist, I think, right, the Netherlands.

K: Smug. But yeah, there are huge differences. I was quite annoyed while researching all of this, not to find an annual EU report on, like, the state of cycling across the continent. Because that does seem like the kind of thing that EU would produce. So the data is kind of piecemeal, but there are lots of people studying and measuring how often people cycle in different countries and how safe it is. In terms of bike ownership, one country is way ahead of everyone else. Can you guess where it is, Dominic?

D: The Netherlands!

K: The Netherlands by a longshot. According to a 2019 study by Euro barometer, 41% of Dutch people use their own bike as their main form of transport, which is astonishing. 

D: Yeah, it's amazing.

K: Quite a lot of other northern European countries are fairly good on this but still significantly behind the Netherlands. In Sweden, 21% of people count a bike as their main form of transport. In Germany, it's 50%. But yeah, for a lot of the rest of Europe, it doesn't matter whether it's east or west or south, in most countries, only between 2 and 4% of people use a bike as their main form of transport. The majority use cars. And I wanted to ask you, you know, obviously the Netherlands is famously pro-bicycle, but that wasn't always the case, was it?

D: No, it wasn't, although before I get too smug about living in this like happy cycling country, I think we should also acknowledge that it's got some geographical advantages for cycling, being a very flat country with a relatively mild climate. So yeah, I do forgive other parts of the continent where it's less convenient to cycle, for having fewer people cycling. But no, indeed, there was quite a big dip in cycling in the middle of the last century, I think, and cars really took over for a while. But then there was a huge backlash against it from activist groups, because of lots of traffic accidents in the 1970s. And things really turned around and created the country that we have today that’s so pro-cycling.

K: There you go. I really think that history deserves to be better known because it's a really good example of a country enjoying something good because campaigners worked really hard to get it. And then politicians bought in good policies and spent money on them. It isn't just that everyone cycles in the Netherlands because it's flat. 

D: Yeah. 

K: But going back to the data on cycling across Europe, I should add that this EU-wide survey from 2019, it's getting a bit out of date now, because cycling went up in lots of countries during the pandemic, when people were trying to avoid public transport for obvious reasons. So I'm curious to know the extent to which that stuck, like I suspect that a few countries may have jumped a few percent and maybe narrowed that gap with the Netherlands a teeny tiny bit. Apart from this EU survey, the other quite good comparison tool that I found – and again, the latest data is from 2019 – but it's this website called Copenhagenize. And it's basically an index ranking cities around the world on how bicycle-friendly they are. It takes into account lots of different factors, not just cycle paths, but whether cities are being planned around making it safe for cyclists, whether there's a bike share scheme available, stuff like that. 

D: And did Amsterdam rank is the most bicycle-friendly? 

K: It didn't. You might be able to guess from the name of the initiative, Copenhagenize, that Copenhagen came top. It beat Amsterdam by a tiny fraction, a few tenths of a percentage point. But it is quite interesting to note that 15 of the top 20 cities for cycling around the world are in Europe. So this is the most cycleable continent in the world, and we should be proud of that. The only cities that weren't in Europe in the top 20 were Bogota, Tokyo, Taipei, Montreal and Vancouver. So good job, Europe. But anyway, I hope that the new European Declaration on Cycling does encourage the EU to do whatever it can do to make Europe an even better place to cycle. You know, it's very easy as an institution to say that you're pro-cycling, it's a relatively uncontroversial policy area compared to, you know, immigration or something like that. But actually putting your money where your mouth is, is something else. And this is literally a life and death matter. More than 2000 cyclists are killed across the EU every year. And if you look at the data on road deaths, it's quite striking. Europe's roads are getting safer for car users, pedestrians, pretty much everyone apart from cyclists, which is especially crazy when you think about how nicer cities can become by being bike friendly. It means less pollution, less traffic, better public health – why wouldn't we want to encourage that as much as possible? So it's really nice to have this lovely PDF document from the EU saying lots of nice pro-cycling things, but I'm looking forward to seeing it turned into concrete action.

D: I'm not sure all the tourists in Amsterdam would agree that bicycles make a city nicer. 

K: That's true. They do move as a pack. A scary, angry pack.

* * *

 D: Our thanks this week go out to the following listeners who have decided to support us on the website to patreon.com with a small monthly donation. Thank you to Luca, Peter and Sam, and Priscila. 

K: Thank you so much, wonderful people. This podcast is made each week by me and Dominic and our lovely producers Katz and Wojciech. But it is funded by you guys, the listeners. And that's very cool. It means that we're accountable to you. This is an independent operation, there is no big money involved. And we're really proud that we have an audience that feels like they can get involved and suggest ideas for who we should be talking to and topics that we should be covering each week. A great way to feel more involved in the making The Europeans is to become an amazing supporter, just like Luca, Priscilla, Peter and Sam. And for as little as a couple of bucks a month, you can join our secret Facebook group where people discuss ideas for the show and things that are happening around Europe in general. It's a really nice corner of the internet. 

D: It is a very nice corner of the internet. So yeah, please consider helping out and giving us a little bit of monthly cash by heading to patreon.com/europeans podcast. 

K: Thanks so much!

INTERVIEW WITH GUGLIELMO BARONE - 24’39”

K: When we look back in a few decades’ time at the time that we're currently living in, and we try and think about what the big themes of this time were – I have a strong suspicion that they're going to include a sense that young people today don't have the same opportunities that their parents had to control the outcomes in their lives. I don't know if this is true everywhere in Europe, but certainly in the country that you and me grew up in, Dominic, in the UK, after the Second World War, we had like a bunch of prime ministers that came from working class backgrounds. And then you look at recent prime ministers – not all of them, but you know, David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak – they all went to the fanciest schools in the country. That's just one quite visible example of a lack of social mobility of course, most people are not prime ministers. But it is also kind of illustrative of the wider experience of people living in Britain today. There was a report by the UK Institute of Fiscal Studies in September that found social mobility in Britain is the lowest it's been in 50 years. And if you look at the EU, there's obviously a lot of variation. But it's still largely the case that if your parents had a comfortable income, you're more likely to too. You're also, for example, much more likely to get a higher education if your parents did. Eight out of 10 EU citizens whose parents and grandparents went to university will also go to university. That's only three out of 10 If your parents and grandparents did not go to university. You might hope though, that even that the world feels like it's becoming increasingly unfair in this respect – you would hope that this boost that you get from having rich parents might fade over a couple of generations. To put it really crudely, you might hope that someone who is a talentless moron shouldn't be able to live in luxury just because their great, great great great granddad managed to get rich. You would hope that… right? 

D: Yeah, you would hope so. But…

K: But in Italy, some economists wondered if that was actually the case. Guglielmo Barone and Sauro Mocetti had managed to get their hands on some pretty interesting data. It was data on the taxes paid by the citizens of Florence in the year 1427. And they wondered what would happen if they were able to find some way of tracing whether the descendants of the people who were rich in 1427 were still rich six centuries later. And. spoiler alert, it turns out that having a rich great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent might actually be helpful after all. The paper was published in 2021, but it went viral a couple of months ago, and caught our eye. And we were very interested to hear more about it. So we rang up one of its authors, Guglielmo Barone, a professor of economics at the University of Bologna.

* * * 

K: Guglielmo, thank you so much for joining us. 

GUGLIELMO BARONE: Thank you for the invitation. 

K: On a really basic level, this paper of yours looks at how wealth gets transferred across the generations. Generally speaking, how do economists go about measuring that? 

G: Well, economists usually tend to measure the impact of the well-being of fathers on the well-being of sons, in general, by estimating the correlation between the socioeconomic status of fathers versus sons. Where socioeconomic status can be, for example, income, earnings, or wealth. This is a relevant dimension of equality among us individuals. But another relevant dimension is the equality of opportunity. That is, what is the probability that you have a given position in the socio-economic ladder given your background basically, okay? Ideally, a fair society will be a society in which the background plays no role. The technical name is elasticity, that is the relationship between two statuses, the father's one and the son’s one.

D: Is it always measured through the male side of the family? Or do you also include the female side?

G: Well, it's – in principle, there is no distinction between males and females. So the focus is not on different roles according to different gender. 

D: And so there's a fair amount of contrast in how this figure of elasticity between different countries in Europe, as far as I understand. Where in Europe is there more or less elasticity in terms of the transfer of wealth?

G: The bigger the elasticity, the lower the mobility, because elasticity is the weight that your background has on your current status. Countries in which elasticity is higher – that is, less mobile countries in Europe, at least, are for example Italy, but also UK. On the opposite side, the Nordic countries like Denmark, Sweden, Finland, show lower elasticity, that is higher mobility. Another interesting feature is that societies showing higher elasticities tend to be also less fair in terms of income distribution. This is a positive relationship that is known as the Great Gatsby curve. The name is taken from a novel from, I think, Scott Fitzgerald. This is concerning because both dimensions go in the same direction.

K: And so, your research looks at the transfer of wealth in the very, very long run, over centuries in fact. What made you want to look at the way these life chances get distributed over such a long timeframe?

G: Before our paper, the common wisdom was that, for example, Italy, the UK, is not so fair in this perspective, but after two or three generations, any effect of the past, of the background, fades away. Our paper challenges this common wisdom, stating that it's not true that after two or three generations any role of the background fades away. In fact, what we do in this paper is, we take data on both earnings and wealth from tax records six centuries ago, more or less, for the city of Florence. For all taxpayers in Florence in 1427, 1429, we have earnings and wealth, and we know their names. And basically what we do in this paper is we connected these surnames with the surnames of taxpayers living today in Florence. Today means 2011. And we connect data on both earnings and wealth according to the surnames. Our prior was that if it's true that any effect fades away, after two or three generations, the relationship should be zero. But surprisingly, what we find is that we are able to detect small but positive elasticity, even after six centuries. This is the key result of the paper. That is 25, 27 generations. This means that we have to take these dimensions of inequality very seriously, because time is not enough to make this coefficient vanishing, basically.

D: Why is this? Have you come up with any answers as to why you think wealth manages or transfer?

G: More than answers, we can provide some interpretations. Because we have data from six centuries ago and data nowadays, but we don't know what's going on in between. One possibility is that two-generation income elasticity, that is, fathers and sons, was super high before the Industrial Revolution. Because the socio-economic status tended to be very, very sticky. Then mobility becomes higher, but only in very recent times. Probably after the Industrial Revolution, that basically changes the ranks within the societies. That’s one possibility. Another possibility – it’s not a possibility, it's a tentative explanation. What we find is that there is persistence in some elite professions. Basically, we have data from 1427, data – we know the profession of the taxpayers, and we can map some of these professions in professions that are existing nowadays, namely lawyers, doctors, bankers, and goldsmiths. And there are strong barriers to entry in these professions. And we see that if you have a given surname, for example, the probability that you are a banker today is higher if the banker intensity of your surname in the past, was higher. And this is true for three out of four professions. It's true for lawyers, it’s true for bankers, and it’s true for goldsmiths. It’s not true for medical professions. This points to the idea that barriers to entry can be a tool that enables the propagation over time of some benefits. This is another interpretation.

K: So just to clarify, in terms of how you made these comparisons between 1427 and 2011 – how did you do that? Because of course, you can't trace family trees across six centuries. But you can, I guess, look at whether people with the same surnames are still rich centuries later.

G: Yeah, we basically match these two data sets by the surnames, assuming that sharing the same surname is informative about a lineage. Of course, if the surname is super widespread – for example, the most widespread Italian surname is Rossi – this is not very, very informative. But if your surname is very, very rare, then sharing the same surname is a strong signal for being in the same familial lineage. So what we can do in the paper is restricting the sample to the rarest of surnames, something like this, and see that the results are there and maybe are stronger.

D: How much of what you've learned from this study, do you think is specific to Florence? And how much do you think it can teach us about how wealth gets transferred in other countries today?

G: I don't want to oversell our paper, of course. So, I cannot say, well, that is true for any city or in any historical context. What we can say safely is that Florence at that time was not a super outlier, was not super different from other situations. For example, the degree of economic development at that time was not different from the degree of development in many other cities around Europe. So the true answer is, I don't know. But there are no elements on an a priori point of view, suggesting that this is an outlier. 

K: Did writing this paper change the way that you think personally about whether or not we should be using policy tools like inheritance tax, to give people more of an equal chance in life?

G: To me, this paper reinforced the idea that the Italian economy needs stronger policies in order to improve competition, reduce barrier to entry. I'm not so sure that the appropriate tool is inheritance tax, because inheritance tax comes with some costs. Because it basically reduces incentives to accumulate wealth, because if you know that your wealth goes away, at least in part on an ex ante basis, you can have less incentive to accumulate wealth, okay? But for sure, the best barrier to lower is, for example, the provision of good public education, this is most important, because if you are able to provide good public education, well, it's a very important first step.

* * *

D: I find it interesting that he didn't look at inheritance tax as one of the best solutions for social mobility. So I actually looked into it a bit more. And I found this interesting article in the New Statesman about this topic, that inheritance tax is really good for tax revenue, but actually, it's not so important for social mobility, because mainly people inherent that wealth much later in their lives when the social mobility would have already had to have happened.

K: Right, they would have maybe already been helped in, you know, going to a really nice school. 

D: Exactly. 

K: Buying a house and that kind of thing. Interesting. We will post that in the show notes. 

D: Yeah. And it's interesting this research in general – in some ways, I find it surprising that over 600 years, you continue to benefit from your ancestors’ wealth. But on the other hand, isn't it just like, totally to be expected in this capitalistic system we live in? 

K: Were your ancestors 600 years ago producing weekly podcasts, do you think? Are you a podcasts nepo-grandbaby?

D: I know I had a Polish cantor, a Jewish Polish Cantor somewhere.

K: What’s a cantor?

D: Someone who sings in synagogue, leads services. And that's where ‘Kraemer’ came from. And I know I had a sculptor in Italy, actually, somewhere back in the 15th century.

K: Oh, interesting. So you come from an artistic family going way back.

D: And religious. That didn't stick.

K: Clearly. My ancestors were publicans.

D: Oh, cool!

K: They had pubs in East London, which I think is also something that has passed down very much through the ages.

D: Your ability to drink?

K: My ability to enjoy a glass or two. Thank you so much, Guglielmo, for joining us from Bologna. You will find a link to his research in the show notes.

THE INSPIRATION STATION - 38’33”

D: Time to roll into the Inspiration Station.

K: Choo choo.

D: What have you been enjoying this week, Katy? 

K: Yeah, I've been listening to some of the newer episodes of the confusingly named podcast ‘Have You Heard George's Podcast’, which is the podcast of the British Ugandan spoken word artist, George the Poet. I was obsessed with this podcast when it first came out a few years ago. 

D: I remember. 

K: Yeah, I thought it was really kind of the best that podcasting has to offer as a medium, in that it was totally unlike anything you would hear on the radio. It dealt with serious issues around social and racial justice but in this amazingly creative format, interweaving music and poetry. Anyway, as I often do with podcasts, I got really into the show and then I kind of forgot about it when there was a break between seasons. And I recently thought, ‘I wonder if George is still making this podcast?’ And sure enough, there was a new season released towards the end of last year. The latest season is about the legacy of colonialism. And one episode really caught my eye because it was called ‘Francophone’ – relevant to my interests. And I really enjoyed it. It starts by asking how come so many great songs by African artists end up getting remixed by Western artists and then become huge hits? So it starts with that question about music, but then it becomes about much broader issues around the history of the extraction of African resources by the French and by others. I thought it was really well done. It's actually a two-part podcast, the second episode is about the currency that some of France's former colonies use and the extent to which that is exploitative. I will say I disagreed with that second episode quite a lot, but it is still worth a listen and then maybe some further reading around that topic if you're interested. Because I think there should be more podcasts about monetary policy that are delivered in the form of spoken word poetry. Anyway, ‘Francophone Part One, I enjoyed it a lot. And you can find it via the BBC.

D: I've actually never listened to it, even though you've recommended it before. So I should actually do it this time.

K: That just goes to show how seriously you take my recommendations. 

D: Sorry.

K: What have you been enjoying? Because clearly, it's not gonna be anything I told you to listen to or watch?

D: Well, it's something a bit heavy. Like I'm sure many of you, I continue to be pretty horrified reading the reports of the way the Israeli military is fighting in Gaza, far more than 30,000 dead, the majority of them women and children. And it does seem like there was somewhat of an inflection point last week when the IDF killed seven eight workers from World Central Kitchen. The tone of the rhetoric from Israel's allies, many of them European countries, does seem to have started to shift and the logical question is being asked: Should these countries continue arming Israel? And I heard a very good episode looking at this question on the Guardian’s daily podcast, Today in Focus. They asked the question specifically in relation to the UK, but it could be applied to many other countries that are providing some kind of military support to Israel. There was one part of the episode that really stuck with me, when presenter Michael Safi talks about the strike on the World Central Kitchen workers. He said, ‘If there was an error made, it wasn't in the strike 00 it was the fact that the people who were struck were foreigners, people whose lives seem to have greater value in the way that this conflict is assessed.’ I found that really striking to hear and I really recommend it as a listen in general. It’s the episode from the fifth of April. called ‘Should the UK stop arming Israel?’

K: It's quite interesting following on from the conversation that we had a few weeks ago about how in the Netherlands campaign groups were trying to use the courts to push Dutch companies to stop being involved in the arms trade for Israel. 

D: Yeah. 

K: And it sounds like governments are starting to have that conversation on their own without having to be forced by the courts, which can only be a good thing. 

D: Yeah. And just this week, Nicaragua have taken Germany to court over supplying arms to Israel to the International Court of Justice. So the conversation continues to shift and evolve. But meanwhile, Palestinians are dying every day and starving to death. So let's really hope there's some tangible action soon. 

HAPPY ENDING - 42’50”

D: Time for a happy ending. Producer Katz brought something to my attention this week that definitely counts as a happy ending. It is the news that the Picasso Museum in Paris is going to show the work of Françoise Gilot, an ex of Pablo Picasso, who left him and subsequently faced the wrath of Pablo. After she left him he said he would destroy her career, and he was somewhat successful in that, persuading a gallery to stop representing her and persuading another prestigious venue to stop exhibiting her work. He also destroyed her belongings and claimed that any interest in her work wouldn't be because of her work, but because her life had been, quote, touched by his so intimately.

K: Every time I hear about what an insufferable person Pablo Picasso was, I think I've heard it all. And then I learn more about what a terrible person he was. 

D: It's really gross. But the good news is she's now going to get her own room in the Picasso Museum. And I find that a bit of a pleasing ‘fuck you’ to Pablo from beyond the grave. The curators say they are not presenting her work as a muse of Picasso, but presenting her as an artist in her own right. 

K: Love that. She died fairly recently, right? 

D: Yeah, it was just under a year ago. She was 40 years younger than Pablo Picasso and actually had two kids with him. The only thing that’s sad about this is that it didn't happen while she was still alive. Nonetheless, it's being viewed as a belated apology from the art community in France, who treated her so badly for so many years. And it's garnering a lot of attention. So I think we should go, I should come and visit you and we should go and check out this room and not look at any of the other paintings.

K: I actually really hate that museum. 

D: Oh really?!

K: So yes, let’s do it.

* * *

K: I'm sure you'll have seen the exciting news this week, Dominic, that Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, is now on TikTok.

D: Oh, yeah. His latest attempt to try and become a bit more popular with the kids. 

K: Is it time that we joined him? 

D: No. 

K: I'm gonna keep chipping away at this. One day we'll be on TikTok. I'm actually quite obsessed with politicians on TikTok. I found myself watching a day in the life of François Hollande the other day, it was weirdly engrossing.

D: Well, I guess there are worse things to be looking at on TikTok, so – are there actually? I don't know.

K: Anyway, you won't find us there anytime soon. But you can find us on a range of other social media platforms: Instagram, Twitter, Threads and Mastodon,just search for ‘The Europeans podcast’.

D: This week's episode was produced by Katz Laszlo and Wojciech Oleksiak. Thank you both.

K: Thanks both. We'll be back next week.

D: Bye!

K: Salut!