Urban Political Structure and Inequality: Political Economy Lessons from Early Modern German Cities.

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Felix Schaff, European University Institute

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
City panel_replication JEH.dta application/x-stata-dta 19.9 KB 03/19/2024 08:27:AM
Noerdlingen panel_replication JEH.dta application/x-stata-dta 6.4 MB 03/19/2024 03:34:AM
README_Urban Political Structure and Inequality.pdf application/pdf 90.9 KB 03/19/2024 06:23:AM
Replication_Noerdlingen_JEH.do text/plain 32.9 KB 03/19/2024 08:24:AM

Project Citation: 

Schaff, Felix. Urban Political Structure and Inequality: Political Economy Lessons from Early Modern German Cities. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-03-19. https://doi.org/10.3886/E199085V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary What was the impact of urban political structure on preindustrial wealth inequality? I document that more closed political institutions were associated with higher inequality in a panel of early-modern German cities. To investigate the mechanisms behind that macro-relationship, I construct a unique individual-level panel dataset on personal wealth and political office-holding in the city-state of Nördlingen (1579–1700). I employ a difference-in-differences setting to show that political elites enriched themselves substantially, increasing inequality. To address endogeneity concerns, I exploit the Thirty-Years’ War as a shock to elites’ potential for enrichment from public office. Officials manipulated this crisis to enrich themselves further.



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V1 [2024-03-19]

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