Living Standards and Mortality since the Middle Ages

Gráda, Cormac Ó and Morgan Kelly
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Cormac Ó Gráda

No 8036, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Existing studies find little connection between living standards and mortality in England, but go back only to the sixteenth century. Using new data on inheritances, we extend estimates of mortality back to the mid-thirteenth century and find, by contrast, that deaths from unfree tenants to the nobility were strongly affected by harvests. Looking at a large sample of parishes after 1540, we find that the positive check had weakened considerably by 1650 even though real wages were falling, but persisted in London for another century despite its higher wages. In both cases the disappearance of the positive check coincided with the introduction of systematic poor relief, suggesting that government action played a role in breaking the link between harvest failure and mass mortality.

Keywords: Positive; check (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Living standards and mortality since the middle ages (2014)
Working Paper: Living standards and mortality since the Middle Ages (2010)
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