Economic inequality and growth before the industrial revolution: the case of the Low Countries (fourteenth to nineteenth centuries)

Abstract

This article studies a collection of data on economic inequality in fifteen towns in the Southern and Northern Low Countries from the late Middle Ages until the end of the nineteenth century. By using a single and consistent source type and adopting a uniform methodology, it is possible to study levels of urban economic inequality across time and place comparatively. The results indicate a clear growth in economic inequality in the two centuries prior to the industrial revolution and the onset of sustained economic growth per capita. The results presented lend support to the classical explanation of inequality as the consequence of a changing functional distribution of income favoring capital over labor over the course of the early modern period. These findings provide an alternative resolution of the conundrum presented by optimist and pessimists interpretations of early modern economic development.