Book Chapter

Economic inequality in preindustrial Europe, 1300-1800: methods and results from the EINITE project

  • Guido Alfani

This article provides an overview of the research done in recent years by the ERC-funded projects EINITE-Economic Inequality across Italy and Europe 1300-1800, and SMITE-Social Mobility and Inequality across Italy and Europe 1300-1800. It begins by discussing the sources available for reconstructing preindustrial economic inequality, especially in Italy, then it provides an overview of the methods which have been developed to produce reliable and homogenous information about inequality levels and trends. The method developed by EINITE to produce measures or distributions representative of broader aggregates (regions or entire states) is also discussed, as well as the techniques that can be employed to explore in a meaningful way such distributions to answer relevant historical questions.

  • Keywords:
  • economic inequality,
  • economic history,
  • pre-industrial age,
  • wealth distribution,
  • european economic history,
+ Show More

Guido Alfani

Bocconi University, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0001-5534-8694

  1. Alfani G. (2009), Prima della curva di Kuznets: dinamiche della ricchezza tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna, in Alfani G. and Barbot M. (eds.), Ricchezza, valore, proprietà in età preindustriale 1400-1850, Marsilio: 143-167.
  2. Alfani G. (2015), Economic Inequality in Northwestern Italy: A Long-Term View (Fourteenth to Eighteenth Centuries), «The Journal of Economic History», 75, 4: 1058-1096.
  3. Alfani G. (2017), The rich in historical perspective. Evidence for preindustrial Europe (ca. 1300-1800), «Cliometrica», 11, 3: 321-348.
  4. Alfani G. (2019), Wealth and Income Inequality in the long run of history, in Diebolt C. and Hupert M. (eds.), Handbook of Cliometrics, 2nd Edition, Berlin-Heidelberg.
  5. Alfani G. (forthcoming), Economic inequality in preindustrial times: Europe and beyond, «Journal of Economic Literature».
  6. Alfani G. and Ammannati F. (2017), Long-term trends in economic inequality: the case of the Florentine State, ca. 1300-1800, «Economic History Review», 70, 4: 1072-1102.
  7. Alfani G. and Di Tullio M. (2019), The Lion’s Share. Inequality and the Rise of the Fiscal State in Preindustrial Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
  8. Alfani G. and Murphy T. (2017), Plague and Lethal Epidemics in the Pre-Industrial World, «The Journal of Economic History», 77, 1: 314-343, 332-334.
  9. Alfani G. and Ryckbosch W., Growing apart in early modern Europe? A comparison of inequality trends in Italy and the Low Countries, 1500-1800, «Explorations in Economic History», 62: 143-153.
  10. Alfani G., Gierok V. and Schaff F. (2020), Economic inequality in preindustrial Germany, ca. 1300-1850, Stone Center Working Paper Series, 3.
  11. Alfani G., Wealth Inequalities and Population Dynamics in Northern Italy during the Early Modern Period, «Journal of Interdisciplinary History», 40, 4: 513-549.
  12. Alfani, G. and Sardone S. (2015), Long-term trends in economic inequality in southern Italy. The Kingdom of Naples and Sicily, 16th-18th centuries: first results, Paper given at the Economic History Association Annual Meeting, Nashville.
  13. Allen R.C., Class structure and inequality during the industrial revolution: lessons from England’s social tables, 1688-1867, «Economic History Review», 72, 1: 88-125.
  14. Atkinson A.B., Piketty T. and Saez E. (2011), Top Incomes in the Long Run of History, «Journal of Economic Literature», 49, 1: 3-71.
  15. Atkinson A.B., Piketty T. and Saez E. (2013), The Top 1 Percent in International and Historical Perspective, «Journal of Economic Perspectives», 27, 3: 3-20.
  16. Bengtsson E., Missiaia A., Olsson M. and Svensson P. (2017), Wealth inequality in Sweden, 1750-1900, «Economic History Review», 71, 3: 772-79.
  17. Bonney R.(ed.) (1999), The rise of fiscal state in Europe (1200-1815), Oxford.
  18. Broadberry S., Campbell B.M.S., Klein A., Overton M. and Van Leeuwen B.(2015), British Economic Growth 1270-1870, Cambridge.
  19. Canbakal J., Filiztekin A. and Pamuk Ş. (2018), Inequality of Income and Wealth in the Ottoman Empire, 1500-1800, Paper given at the World Economic History Congress, Boston.
  20. García‐Montero H. (2015), Long-term Trends in Wealth Inequality in Catalonia, 1400-1800: Initial Results, Dondena Working Paper, 79.
  21. Kuznets S. (1955), Economic Growth and Income Inequality, «American Economic Review», 45, 1: 1-28.
  22. Lindert P.H. (1991), Toward a comparative history of income and wealth inequality, in Brenner Y.S., Kaelble H. and Thomas M. (eds.), Income distribution in historical perspective, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 212-231.
  23. Lindert P.H. (2000), Three centuries of inequality in Britain and America, in Atkinson A.B. and Bourguignon F. (eds.), Handbook of Income Distribution, London: 167-216.
  24. Lindert P.H. (2014), Making the most of Capital in the 21st Century, NBER working paper No. 20232.
  25. Lindert P.H. and Williamson J.G. (2016), Unequal gains. American growth and inequality since 1700, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
  26. Malinowski M. and Van Zanden J.L. (2017), Income and its distribution in preindustrial Poland, «Cliometrica», 11, 3: 375-404.
  27. Milanovic B. (2005), Worlds Apart. Measuring International and Global Inequality, Princeton.
  28. Nicolini E.A. and Ramos Palencia F. (2016), Comparing Income and Wealth Inequality in Pre-Industrial economies: Lessons from 18th-century Spain, EHES Working Papers, 95.
  29. Nicolini E.A. and Ramos Palencia F. (2016), Decomposing Income Inequality in a Backward Pre-Industrial Economy: Old Castile (Spain) in the Middle of the 18th Century, «Economic History Review», 69, 3: 747-772.
  30. Piketty T. (2006), The Kuznet's curve, yesterday, and tomorrow, in Banerjee A., Benabou R. and Mookerhee D. (eds.), Understanding Poverty, Oxford: 63-72.
  31. Piketty T. (2014), Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge.
  32. Reis J. (2017), Deviant behaviour? Inequality in Portugal 1565–1770, «Cliometrica», 11, 3; 297-319.
  33. Roine J. E and Waldenström D. (2015), Long Run Trends in the Distribution of Income and Wealth, in Atkinson A.B. and Bourguignon F. (eds.), Handbook of Income Distribution, vol. 2A, Amsterdam: 469-592, 552.
  34. Rotelli C. (1966), La distribuzione della proprietà terriera e delle colture a Imola nel XVII e XVIII secolo, Giuffrè, Milano.
  35. Rotelli C. (1968), La finanza locale pontificia nel Cinquecento: il caso di Imola, «Studi storici», IV: 115-18.
  36. Ryckbosch W. (2016), Economic inequality and growth before the industrial revolution: the case of the Low Countries (fourteenth to nineteenth centuries), «European Review of Economic History», 20: 1-22.
  37. Saito O. (2015), Growth and inequality in the great and little divergence debate: a Japanese perspective, «Economic History Review», 68, 2: 399-419.
  38. Santiago-Caballero C. (2011), Income inequality in central Spain, 1690-1800, «Explorations in Economic History», 48, 1: 83-96.
  39. Scheidel W. (2017), The Great Leveller: Violence and the Global History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Present, Oxford: 80-83.
  40. Soltow L. and Van Zanden J.L. (1998), Income and wealth inequality in the Netherlands, 16th-20th centuries, Amsterdam.
  41. Tilly C. (1984), Demographic origins of the European proletariat’ in, Levine D. (ed.), Proletarianization and Family History: 1-85.
  42. Van Bavel B. (2016), The Invisible Hand? How Market Economies have Emerged and Declined since AD 500, Oxford: 192-193.
  43. Van Zanden J.L. (1995), Tracing the beginning of the Kuznets Curve: Western Europe during the Early Modern Period, «Economic History Review», 48, 4: 643-664.
  44. Yun-Casalilla B. and O’Brien P.K. (eds.) (2012), The Rise of Fiscal States: A Global History. 1500-1914, Cambridge.
PDF
  • Publication Year: 2020
  • Pages: 21-36
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2020 Author(s)

XML
  • Publication Year: 2020
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2020 Author(s)

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Economic inequality in preindustrial Europe, 1300-1800: methods and results from the EINITE project

Authors

Guido Alfani

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-053-5.07

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2020

Copyright Information

© 2020 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Disuguaglianza economica nelle società preindustriali: cause ed effetti / Economic inequality in pre-industrial societies: causes and effect

Editors

Giampiero Nigro

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

488

Publication Year

2020

Copyright Information

© 2020 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-053-5

ISBN Print

978-88-5518-052-8

eISBN (pdf)

978-88-5518-053-5

eISBN (xml)

978-88-5518-054-2

Series Title

Datini Studies in Economic History

Series ISSN

2975-1241

Series E-ISSN

2975-1195

679

Fulltext
downloads

777

Views

Export Citation

1,340

Open Access Books

in the Catalogue

2,191

Book Chapters

3,790,127

Fulltext
downloads

4,399

Authors

from 923 Research Institutions

of 65 Nations

64

scientific boards

from 348 Research Institutions

of 43 Nations

1,246

Referees

from 379 Research Institutions

of 38 Nations