Legacy on deck: skill transmission and occupational dynasties in the Royal Navy

Do occupational dynasties reflect the intergenerational transmission of skills or nepotism? We use detailed data on the fighting record of the 18th century Royal Navy to show that sons of navy officers are markedly more successful than non-legacies, outperforming in terms of enemy captures by a third. This performance differential is not due to better equipment or more favorable assignments, and also holds for those whose patron has passed away. We provide evidence for positive selection as a channel through which the outperformance is sustained — sons of successful officers are more likely to join and be promoted in the navy. To examine the importance of vertical transmission, we use computer vision to analyze facial landmarks from over 1,000 portraits. We find that facial landmarks are highly predictive of success in naval warfare; sons of service inherited these traits from their fathers and grandfathers.