Prepared for the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. We thank Steven Durlauf, Wolfgang Keller, James Robinson, and participants at the “Whither Meritocracy?” conference and HKU economic history conference for helpful comments. Ying Bai acknowledges financial support from the University Grants Committee/Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (project no. AoE/B- 704/22-R). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.