Wealth inequalities in cities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and their changes during the seventeenth century. Sources and methods of measure

I would like to determine the evolution of wealth concentration in main cities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by comparing the data from different benchmark years. Moreover, I will analyze whether the Gini coefficient value indeed refers to the communities who are at a threshold of economic growth, and what is the correlation between the value of the coefficient and the town or city’s economic situation. Also, it is worthwhile to ponder the question: is there any correlation – noted by both Jan Luiten van Zanden and Guido Alfani – whereby the larger the town/city, the more visible the inequalities. Finally, how do the towns/cities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth compare to those in Western Europe.

La disuguaglianza economica in area marchigiana: uno studio di lungo periodo (1400-1800)

The research aimed at bringing new data to the study of inequality in the distribution of wealth in the long run using the fiscal documentation available to many communities of the Marches region over a period covering the late Middle Ages and the full modern age. The political-administrative history of this territory, progressively incorporated into the Papal State, was reflected in an evolution of the methodologies for assessing wealth for tax purposes. Their characteristics have been carefully taken into account and criticized in order to ensure compatibility in time and space. Land registers, “estimi”, "libre", as well as books of “collette”, will be used to describe the fiscal capacity of taxpayers enrolled in these registers and to estimate the dynamics of economic inequality.

Ineguaglianze economiche. Le certezze e le incertezze

The aim of the opening speech is to present the most discussed issues in relation to inequality in personal distribution of income and wealth. In particular, it first examines the current trends in economic inequality (§ 1-4). Overall, some certainty has been achieved on these trends over the last century. In a second part of this opening speech (§ 5-7), some knowledge we have about pre-modern inequalities is summarized. In this regard, uncertainties are much more numerous than certainties.

Regional variation in the distribution of property rights over land in sixteenth-century Ottoman rural Manisa

Concentrating on the Western Anatolian district of Manisa and employing tax surveys dating 1575, this study points to the regional variation in property rights institutions, which resulted in different inequality regimes across space. Empirical evidence suggests the existence of two agricultural production systems characterized by different property and surplus relations, in the southern and northern parts of the district in the late sixteenth century. Accordingly, inequality structures in these areas reflected region-specific patterns of property rights distribution within and across direct producers and landlords’ classes.

A study of economic inequality in the light of fiscal sources: the case of Catalonia (14th-18th centuries)

This essay aims to present the first results of an ongoing research project devoted to study the evolution of the economic inequality in Catalonia based on different documentary sources and parameters. Here we focus on the strengths and limits of the rich fiscal sources preserved between the 14th and 18th century allowing us an analysis of inequality. This study is limited to the period before 1716 because we do not consider totally reliable connecting data from taxes before this moment, essentially focused on immovable wealth, with those from the Cadastre, which was levied on a wide range of incomes.

Ricchezza e proprietà in una città levantina: Bari tra Cinque e Settecento

This work offers a descriptive and quantitative picture of the property owned by the socio-economic elite of Bari, the only one of the three present great cities of Southern Italy analysable for the Modern Age, given the exemption granted to Naples and Palermo as capitals of the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. The analysis on the 1598 apprezzo and the 1753 catasto has allowed to identify and estimate the wealth of the wealthiest families of Bari, and to show the social composition of its main families. From this analysis it emerged also that, during this century and a half, the number of patrician families in Bari halved in favor of those that “lived nobly”, with more substantial assets to replace the patriciate, among them those of foreigners from Ferrara and Lombardy.

Inequality in Early Modern Spain: New evidence from the Ensenada Cadastre in Castile, c. 1750

This chapter addresses income inequality by offering new evidence based on the Ensenada Cadastre, a unique database on Castilian households circa 1750. We find that inequality in 18th-century Spain was substantial, especially in urban and/or highly populated areas. There was also a positive – but somewhat weaker – relationship not only between inequality and per capita income but also between inequality and poverty. We posit that extreme economic inequality was likely responsible for numerous episodes of social conflict. Finally, the extent of formalized charity and social spending was less than in other Western European regions.

“I nostri contadini solevano istare molto meglio per lo addrieto che ora”: mezzadria, proprietà cittadina e disuguaglianza economica in Toscana, sec. XV-XVI

This paper studies through a quantitative analysis at micro-scale (the pieve of San Giovanni in Petroio in Mugello) in 1427-1512 the relation between the growing economic inequality of the Florentine rural society found by recent research and a peculiar share-cropping system, the mezzadria. By focusing on the mechanisms of wealth redistribution of this system, the paper suggests the role of mezzadria whether in increasing in the long-run the concentration of land property and in providing for the poorest social layers of rural population at subsistence level. In this regard, the paper contributes to explore the role of institutions in increasing wealth concentration from Middle Ages to the Early Modern times.

Economic inequality in the rural Southern Low Countries during the Fifteenth century: sources, data and reflection

This chapter seeks to explore local and regional variation in levels of inequality in different types of rural localities and regions within the late medieval County of Flanders. Our research indicates that fiscal sources for the County of Flanders can produce reliable data on the distribution of income during the late medieval period. The analysis of these data shows that important local and regional differences can be observed in the distribution of rural income. To a large extent, these local variations can be explained by differences in access to local economic resources. Our results, however, also indicate that substantial regional differences in access to rural resources can produce similar income distributions.

Dinamiche della disuguaglianza economica nella Repubblica di Venezia: fonti e metodi d’indagine a partire dal caso padovano

This paper presents an analysis of the available primary sources and the existing methods to reconstruct the tendencies of the economic inequality in the Venetian Mainland, focusing on the case of Padua and its province, the so called contado. After presenting briefly the evolution of the administrative and fiscal system of the Republic of Venice, this paper analyses the main characteristics of the fiscal primary sources produced in the Padovano and proposes a synthetic analysis of the economic inequality trends in this province.