Economic Inequality in Preindustrial Germany, ca. 1300–1850

Guido Alfani,Victoria Gierok,Felix Schaff

doi:10.1017/s0022050721000607

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.

Highlights

This article provides an overview of wealth inequality in Germany during 1300– 1850, introducing a novel database
Recent years have seen a flourishing of studies on preindustrial inequality, which has matched a growing interest in long-term distributive dynamics and the factors leading to an increase or decline in inequality
The distributive dynamics characterizing the preindustrial period have been the object more of speculation than of proper measurement. This is changing, and the new evidence that has recently become available is affecting very significantly how we look at long-term trends in economic inequality, in two respects: the causes of inequality change, and the distributive impact of major catastrophes

Summary

Introduction

This article provides an overview of wealth inequality in Germany during 1300– 1850, introducing a novel database. In 1955, Kuznets argued that inequality, starting from a low level in preindustrial times, increased at the beginning of industrialization, thereafter following an inverted-U path throughout the industrialization process: the so-called “Kuznets curve.” But inequality was found to have been on the rise since at least the beginning of the early modern period in almost all areas object of systematic research, so that on the eve of industrialization it was already relatively high This raises many questions about the causes of inequality change, which can no longer be assumed to consist solely in economic growth: the evidence for preindustrial times suggests that inequality growth occurred in phases of economic stagnation or decline (Alfani 2010a, 2015; Alfani and Ryckbosch 2016; Alfani and Ammannati 2017; Alfani and Di Tullio 2019). Studies of preindustrial inequality contribute significantly to current debates on recent trends

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