Context is definitely relevant. In 1832, Georgia held a lottery to allocate all of its unclaimed land. Almost everyone in the state participated. The value of each parcel of land was immense, life-changing for most of the people in the lottery.
(To be fair, educational attainment and lifetime earnings of offspring are a different measure of success though, so that probably accounts for some of the discrepancy in the results as well.)
> Umm, I seriously doubt that "almost everyone" in the state of Georgia in 1832
Touche. My point was that participation was extensive and varied. It remains to be seen whether or not this effect holds for women or minorities, but even if it didn't, that would only support my main point: context matters.
> A small event known in the US as the Civil War... just might have had something to do with this.
The authors address the Civil War in the piece. It would indeed have been a weird oversight for economic historians studying the pre-war South if they hadn't, if that just never occurred to them as relevant.
Families who won the lottery reverted to the mean in a generation or two: http://home.uchicago.edu/~bleakley/Bleakley_Ferrie_Intergen....
(To be fair, educational attainment and lifetime earnings of offspring are a different measure of success though, so that probably accounts for some of the discrepancy in the results as well.)