Changing social inequality from first farmers to early states in Southeast Asia

When the first rice farmers expanded into Southeast Asia from the north about 4,000 y ago, they interacted with hunter-gatherer communities with an ancestry in the region of at least 50 millennia. Rigorously dated prehistoric sites in the upper Mun Valley of Northeast Thailand have revealed a 12-phase sequence beginning with the first farmers followed by the adoption of bronze and then iron metallurgy leading on to the rise of early states. On the basis of the burial rituals involving interment with a wide range of mortuary offerings and associated practices, we identify, by computing the values of the Gini coefficient, at least two periods of intensified social inequality. The first occurred during the initial Bronze Age that, we suggest, reflected restricted elite ownership of exotic valuables within an exchange choke point. The second occurred during the later Iron Age when increased aridity stimulated an agricultural revolution that rapidly led to the first state societies in mainland Southeast Asia

The Global Dynamics of Inequality (GINI) project: analysing archaeological housing data

The GINI project investigates the dynamics of inequality among populations over the long term by synthesising global archaeological housing data. This project brings archaeologists together from around the world to assess hypotheses concerning the causes and consequences of inequality that are of relevance to contemporary societies globally

Francesco da Empoli e Pietro Strozzi: un dibattito su usura e speculazione nella Firenze del Trecento

Il saggio analizza le teorie economiche sviluppate in ambito Francescano e Domenicano riguardo la liceità del tasso di interesse sul debito pubblico Fiorentino nel '300

Plagues, wars, political change, and fiscal capacity: late medieval and Renaissance Siena, 1337–1556

After the 1348 Black Death, the Republic of Siena went through a period of recurrent plagues, military threats, and famines. During this phase the city moved from the oligarchic system to a coalition formed by the participation of social groups previously excluded from politics, an institutional path almost unique among contemporary Italian states. Did the city maintain its fiscal capacity, and, if so, how? These questions are addressed using a quantitative analysis of a new dataset compiled from the fiscal archives of the city of Siena, which shows two main results. First, despite the increasing external threats, the coalitions were able to maintain fiscal capacity until the second half of the fifteenth century. Second, they did so by adopting progressive fiscal instruments that allowed the city to raise the resources needed to deal with increasing fiscal pressure. However, these instruments ultimately linked the fiscal capacity of Siena to the economic trends of northern and central Italy. When in the second half of the fifteenth century the region entered into an economic downturn, the fiscal capacity of Siena plummeted and the city lost its independence

Origins of Europe's north-south divide: Population changes, real wages and the 'little divergence' in early modern Europe

In this paper, I investigate the "little divergence" of late medieval and early modern Europe, focusing on the long run response of real wages to demographic changes. Through a quantitative analysis of the 14th-18th centuries series of real wages and population shocks in fourteen European cities, I find that in four north-western cities (Amsterdam, Antwerp, London, and Oxford) the urban real wages were detached from population before the Industrial Revolution , while, in the central and southern Europe wages had a moderate or negative response to population changes. In addition, I show that this different response dates back to the 16th century. I claim, that these two results support three possibly non alternative interpretations of the "little divergence", either based on changes of fertility regimes, rural and urban labor organizations, or on the onset, in early modern north-western Europe, of non strictly Malthusian growth mechanisms

Nordic exceptionalism? Social democratic egalitarianism in world-historic perspective

In what respect, if any, are the Nordic economies exceptionally egalitarian when viewed from a world historical perspective? Our answer is based on archaeological, historical and ethnographic as well as contemporary evidence over the past three thousand years. The countries exemplifying the Nordic model are not exceptionally equal in the ownership of material wealth. Moreover, the advent of social democracy in the Nordic nations did not result in a more equal distribution of years of schooling. But intergenerational economic and social mobility appears to be exceptional in the Nordic nations, and by most measures, inequalities in living standards in the Nordic economies are less than in other advanced economies. The closest Nordic analogy in our data set is to the egalitarian distribution of well-being and limited intergenerational transmission of wealth found in some horticultural and (especially) forager economies

Pandemics and socio-economic status : evidence from the plague of 1630 in Northern Italy

This article, by making use of the exceptional documentation available for the city of Carmagnola in north-western Italy during the 1630 plague and particularly the detailed records of the plague ward (the lazzaretto) where those infected or under suspicion of being infected were interned, sets out to answer two questions that have long remained without an answer: how did individual chances of survival depend upon socioeconomic status? And what was the impact on survival of medical treatment and hospitalization, whose specific dynamics – as we demonstrate – were themselves influenced by socio-economic status

The farming-inequality nexus: new insights from ancient Western Eurasia

This article advances the hypothesis that the transformation of farming from a labour-limited form to a land-limited form facilitated the emergence of substantial and sustained wealth inequalities in many ancient agricultural societies. Using bioarchaeological and other relevant evidence for the nature of ancient agrosystems, the authors characterise 90 Western Eurasian site-phases as labour- vs land-limited. Their estimates of wealth inequality (the Gini coefficient), which incorporate data on house and household storage size and individual grave goods—adjusted for comparability using new methods—indicate that land-limited farming systems were significantly more unequal than labour-limited ones

Multigenerational transmission of wealth. Florence 1403-1480

By using hand-collected data on households’ wealth assessments, we study multigenerational mobility in Florence during the late Middle Ages. We find that Florentine society was quite mobile but also that multigenerational mobility was lower than implied by two generations estimates. We reconcile these findings by showing their consistency with a model where wealth transmission is governed by an unobserved latent factor. We also show that, given our estimates, this model is compatible with the long-run persistence found by previous studies. Finally, we find that participation in marriage networks and in politics correlates with persistence of the economic status across generations.By using hand-collected data on households' wealth assessments, we study multigenerational mobility in Florence during the late Middle Ages. We find that Florentine society was more mobile than one would expect but also that multigenerational mobility was lower than implied by two generations estimates. We reconcile these findings by showing their consistency with a model where wealth transmission is governed by an unobserved latent factor. We also show that, given our estimates, this model is compatible with the long-run persistence obtained by previous studies. Finally, we find that participation in marriage networks and in politics correlates with persistence of the economic status across generations

Online Florentine Catasto of 1457

The “Florentine Catasto of 1457” was digitized by Marianna Belloc (Sapienza Università di Roma), Francesco Drago (Università di Catania), Mattia Fochesato (Università Bocconi), and Roberto Galbiati (CNRS-SciencesPo). The original documents can be accessed at “Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Viale della Giovine Italia 6, 50122 Firenze, IT” and are included in the archival fund “Catasto del 1457 - Portate dei Cittadini”, Volumes 785-832. Information on Cosimo de Medici and his family (that is missing in the original documents) was taken from de Roover, R. (1963: p.26), “The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank 1397-1494”, Cambridge (Mass): Harvard University Press