IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/iec/inveco/v32y2008i3p259-287.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Surnames and social status in Spain

Author

Listed:
  • M. Dolores Collado

    (Universidad de Alicante)

  • Ignacio Ortuño Ortín

    (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and IVIE)

  • Andrés Romeu

    (Universidad de Murcia)

Abstract

We study the information contained in surnames on the socioeconomic status of people in Spain. We find that people bearing uncommon surnames tend to enjoy a higher socioeconomic status than people bearing more common surnames. This bias is statistically very significant and robust to different measures of socioeconomic status, and it holds at the national aggregate level as well as at the regional level. The paper offers an explanation of a significant part of such bias as being generated by a signaling behavior by successful dynasties and a low degree of social mobility.

Suggested Citation

  • M. Dolores Collado & Ignacio Ortuño Ortín & Andrés Romeu, 2008. "Surnames and social status in Spain," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 32(3), pages 259-287, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:iec:inveco:v:32:y:2008:i:3:p:259-287
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.fundacionsepi.es/investigacion/revistas/paperArchive/sep2008/v32i3a1.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Santavirta, Torsten & Stuhler, Jan, 2024. "Name-Based Estimators of Intergenerational Mobility," CEPR Discussion Papers 18740, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Romeu, Andrés & Collado, M. Dolores & Ortuño Ortin, Ignacio, 2013. "Long-run intergenerational social mobility and the distribution of surnames," UMUFAE Economics Working Papers 36768, DIGITUM. Universidad de Murcia.
    3. Clark, Gregory & Cummins, Neil & Hao, Yu & Vidal, Dan Diaz, 2015. "Surnames: A new source for the history of social mobility," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 3-24.
    4. Jose A. Martinez, 2013. "Do names matter? The influence of names on perception about professionals in Spain," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 66-74.
    5. Collado, M. Dolores & Ortuño-Ortín, Ignacio & Romeu, Andrés, 2012. "Intergenerational linkages in consumption patterns and the geographical distribution of surnames," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 341-350.
    6. Inmaculada García-Mainar & Víctor M. Montuenga, 2020. "Occupational Prestige and Fathers’ Influence on Sons and Daughters," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 41(4), pages 706-728, December.
    7. Jurajda, Stepán & Münich, Daniel, 2010. "Admission to selective schools, alphabetically," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1100-1109, December.
    8. Stepan Jurajda & Daniel Munich, 2014. "Alphabetical Order Effects in School Admissions," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp509, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Surnames; socioeconomic status.;

    JEL classification:

    • J70 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - General
    • J00 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iec:inveco:v:32:y:2008:i:3:p:259-287. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Isabel Sánchez-Seco (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.fundacionsepi.es/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.