Rethinking Age-Heaping. A Cautionary Tale from Nineteenth Century Italy

A growing literature employs age-heaping as an indicator of human capital, more specifically of numeracy. We re-examine this link in light of a range of evidence from nineteenth century Italy, which suggests that age-heapers were most likely ignorant of their age, not their numbers. Though it can stand in as an acceptable proxy for literacy, our findings indicate that age-heaping is most plausibly interpreted as an indicator of cultural and institutional modernisation rather than a measure of cognitive skills.