The Political Economy of Status Competition: Sumptuary Laws in Preindustrial Europe

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Desiree Desierto; Mark Koyama

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
Century_Collapsed.dta application/x-stata-dta 43.3 KB 03/30/2023 02:06:PM
City_Data_October_21.dta application/x-stata-dta 6.6 MB 03/30/2023 02:06:PM
Replication for Appendix Results.do text/plain 19.6 KB 03/30/2023 10:35:AM
Replication for Figures in Main Paper.do text/plain 1.8 KB 09/27/2021 01:24:PM
Replication for Tables in Main Paper.do text/plain 11.2 KB 03/31/2023 04:01:AM
Yearly_data_city_level_DecadeMerge.dta application/x-stata-dta 9.4 MB 03/30/2023 01:58:PM
florence_time_series_2.dta application/x-stata-dta 22.8 KB 03/30/2023 02:00:PM

Project Citation: 

Desierto, Desiree, and Koyama, Mark. The Political Economy of Status Competition: Sumptuary Laws in Preindustrial Europe. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2023-03-31. https://doi.org/10.3886/E187801V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary Sumptuary laws that regulated clothing based on social status were an important part of the political economy of premodern states.  We introduce a model that captures the notion that consumption by ordinary citizens posed a status threat to ruling elites.  Our model predicts a non-monotonic effect of income - sumptuary legislation initially increases with income, but then falls as income increases further.  The initial rise is more likely for states with less extractive institutions, whose ruling elites face greater status threat from the rising commercial class. We test these predictions using a new dataset of country and city-level sumptuary laws. 

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms Status Competition; Law; Rent-Seeking; Institutions; Plague
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage Western Europe
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 1100 – 1850


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V1 [2023-03-31]

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