Data and Code for "Economic inequality in preindustrial times: Europe and beyond"

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Guido Alfani, Bocconi University

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
DataFigures1-9.xlsx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet	440.2 KB	05/25/2020 12:03:PM
Fig4_ConfIntervals_Bootstrap.do	text/x-stata-syntax	836 bytes	05/25/2020 12:04:PM
Fig5_LorenzCurve_Prato.do	text/x-stata-syntax	882 bytes	04/22/2020 03:06:AM
Fig5_LorenzCurve_Toulouse.do	text/x-stata-syntax	888 bytes	04/22/2020 03:06:AM
README_Economic inequality in preindustrial times.pdf	application/pdf	12.8 KB	05/25/2020 12:05:PM
Setup.do	text/x-stata-syntax	623 bytes	05/25/2020 12:03:PM

Project Citation:

Alfani, Guido. Data and Code for “Economic inequality in preindustrial times: Europe and beyond.” Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2021. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2021-02-26. https://doi.org/10.3886/E119067V1

Project Description

Summary: Recent literature has reconstructed estimates of wealth and income inequality for a range of preindustrial, mostly European, societies covering Medieval and early modern times, occasionally reaching back to Antiquity and even prehistory. These estimates have radically improved our knowledge of distributive dynamics in the past. It now seems clear that in the period ca. 1300-1800, inequality of both income and wealth grew almost monotonically almost everywhere in Europe, with the exception of the century-long phase of inequality decline triggered by the Black Death of 1347-52. Regarding the causes of inequality growth, recent literature ruled out economic growth as the main one. Other possible factors include population growth (also as mediated by inheritance systems) and especially regressive fiscal institutions (also as connected to the unequal distribution of political power). The recently proposed theoretical framework of the Inequality Possibility Frontier (IPF) lends a better understanding of the implications of the reconstructed trends. This article concludes by showing how connecting preindustrial trends to modern ones changes our perception of long-term inequality altogether.

Scope of Project

JEL Classification:
      D31 Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
      D63 Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
      H20 Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue: General
      N30 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: General, International, or Comparative
      N33 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: Europe: Pre-1913

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Published Versions

V1 [2021-02-26]

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