 Growing apart in early modern Europe? A comparison of inequality trends in Italy and the Low Countries, 1500–1800Guido Alfani and Wouter Ryckbosch Explorations in Economic History, 2016, vol. 62, issue C, 143-153 Abstract: This article provides a comparison of long-term changes in inequality in two key areas of preindustrial Europe: Central-Northern Italy and the Low Countries. Based on new archival material, we reconstruct regional estimates of economic inequality during 1500–1800 and use them to assess the role of economic growth, social-demographic variables, proletarianization, and institutions. We argue that different explanations should be invoked to understand the early modern growth of inequality throughout Europe since several factors conspired to make for a society in which it was much easier for inequality to rise than to fall. Although long-term trends in economic inequality were apparently similar across the continent, divergence occurred in terms of inequality extraction ratios. Keywords: Economic inequality; Early modern period; Sabaudian State; Florentine State; Italy; Low countries; Belgium; The Netherlands; Inequality extraction; Wealth concentration; Fiscal state; Proletarianization (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:exehis:v:62:y:2016:i:c:p:143-153 DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2016.07.003 Access Statistics for this article Explorations in Economic History is currently edited by R.H. Steckel More articles in Explorations in Economic History from Elsevier |
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