[supplement, data] Using census data, we study false birth-date registrations in Italy, a phenomenon well known to demographers, in a setting that allows us to separate honesty from the benefits of cheating and deterrence.
By comparing migrants leaving a locality with those who remain in it, we illustrate the tendency of Italians to sort themselves across geographic areas according to their honesty levels.
Over time, this tendency has modified the average honesty level in each locality, with relevant consequences for the distribution across geographic areas of outcomes like human capital, productivity, earnings growth, and the quality of local politicians and government.
…In this paper, we study false birth-date registrations in Italy, a phenomenon well known to demographers, using census data in a setting that allows us to separate honesty from the benefits of cheating and deterrence. We confirm the evidence from vital statistics documented by 1929, 1954, and et al 2018 suggesting that Italians, in some localities more than others, tend to register false birth dates for their children. Starting in early December of each year, the frequency of registered births per day declines substantially, while an abnormally large mass of registered births is concentrated in the first 5 days of the following January.
The demography literature describes the main motives for lying about birth dates as delaying school entry, compulsory military service [allowing the child to work domestically +1 year], marriage, and the age of emancipation. Irrespective of the motive, a parent who registers a false date of birth for a child violates the Italian penal code, which, at least since 1889, carries a punishment of 3–10 years’ imprisonment for any false declaration in a public or private legal document (Codice Zanardelli, art. 278, R.D. June 30, 1889, n. 6133). What makes this indicator particularly interesting for our purposes is that, to our knowledge, it is the only cheating measure that can be computed for groups of the Italian population observed in small localities at different times during the 20th century…The likely most important motive involves the fact that children typically participate in activities with their birth cohort (defined as individuals born in the same calendar year). A child born in December is always among the youngest in the group with whom she competes. If the same child is instead registered as being born in early January, she will be the oldest in her cohort. This is particularly relevant for school activities, sports competitions, and army enrollment, which was compulsory in Italy for children born before 1985.12 Another relevant motive for shifting the birth date of a child born in December to early January is that it keeps the child home longer, which postpones military service or allows more time to find a spouse. As shown in Figure S4, birthday cheating is observed for both females and males, although it is more pronounced for the latter. Cheating is also observed for children who reach higher levels of education (more than high school) and those who do not go beyond compulsory education or are dropouts (Figure S5). Therefore, birthday cheating does not seem to be specifically related to educational attainment. This is not surprising because motives like being older in a cohort, delaying military service, or having more time to find a spouse are largely unrelated to education.
…Birthday cheating appears to be related more to institutions of the past than of the present and specifically to state authorities characterized by less efficient administrations and lower levels of deterrence against rule breaking (see, for example, Putnam et al 199430ya; Di 2015; Bosker et al 200816ya). For example, birthday cheating is almost absent in the insular region of Sardinia, which is usually included in the standard definition of southern Italy but historically was part of the northern Kingdom of Piedmont and Sardinia, ruled by the Savoy dynasty. Historians typically credit this kingdom with an efficient administration and high levels of deterrence against crime (see Putnam et al 199430ya).10 For these reasons, in the present paper ‘the South’ is defined as the set of localities that historically were part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.11
…Labor productivity shows a substantial loss of at least 2.9% induced by +1SD in the honesty drain when no controls are included. This loss declines only slightly in absolute value (2.5%) with controls and industry fixed effects, the log of physical capital per employee, and a measure of human capital in the LLM. Following 2017, the last two controls are meant to isolate the effect of the honesty drain on labor productivity. To give a sense of the economic relevance of these estimates, the overall North-to-South gap in labor productivity (34%) would decrease by about 7.4% with a decrease in 1 standard deviation in the honesty drain. The stability of the value-added estimates of the honesty drain coefficient is remarkable given the increase in the R2-value 0.002 → 0.281 and that the estimates of the 2019 δ-parameter reach a high absolute value.