EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Economic Inequality in Preindustrial Germany, ca. 1300–1850

Guido Alfani, Victoria Gierok and Felix Schaff

The Journal of Economic History, 2022, vol. 82, issue 1, 87-125

Abstract: This article provides an overview of wealth inequality in Germany during 1300–1850, introducing a novel database. We document four alternating phases of inequality decline and growth. The Black Death (1347–1352) led to inequality decline, until about 1450. Thereafter, inequality rose steadily. The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) and the 1627–1629 plague triggered a second phase of inequality reduction. This distinguishes Germany from other European areas where inequality grew monotonically. Inequality growth resumed from about 1700, well before the Industrial Revolution. Our findings offer new material to current debates on the determinants of inequality change in western societies, past and present.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Economic inequality in preindustrial Germany, ca. 1300–1850 (2022) Downloads
Working Paper: Economic Inequality in Preindustrial Germany, ca. 1300 – 1850 (2020) Downloads
Working Paper: Economic Inequality in Preindustrial Germany, ca. 1300 – 1850 (2020) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:jechis:v:82:y:2022:i:1:p:87-125_3

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Journal of Economic History from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-22
Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:82:y:2022:i:1:p:87-125_3