A Cliometric Reappraisal of the Impacts of Plague Outbreaks on Pre-Industrial France

Guillaume Morel and Magali Jaoul-Grammare

Working Papers of BETA from Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of plague outbreaks on nominal wages, real wages, and prices in pre-industrial France. We employ a cliometric approach, relying on a database spanning multiple centuries, drawn from Ridolfi (2019). To analyze the impact of plague outbreaks, we apply an outlier detection methodology to detect atypical points that influence the evolution of our time series. We tackle the following question: over the period 1280–1789, did plague significantly influence the evolution of real wages, nominal wages, and prices, and, if so, what was the nature of this impact? We find that plague outbreaks had differentiated impacts across variables, occupations, and periods. Real and nominal wages responded differently depending on contextual factors, while prices were influenced by both plagues and famines.

Keywords: Cliometrics; Epidemics; Outliers; Plague; Prices; Wages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C32 E32 N33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2026-06

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