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Wed 12 April
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Fri 14 April
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Sat 15 April
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Friday 14 April 2023 14.00 - 16.00
C-11 ECO17 The Cause and Consequences of (a Lack of) State Capacity
B21
Network: Economic History Chair: Mikolaj Malinowski
Organizers: - Discussants: -
Stefania Galli, Dimitrios Theodoridis & Klas Rönnbäck : Destined to the Top? Intergenerational Wealth Transmission and Elite Persistence in the Caribbean at Turbulent Times (1760-1914)
The transmission of wealth is a matter that has long been central to the debate over inequality and its impact on society. Theoretical models of inequality predict the consolidation of wealth into an elite group, along with its persistence in the long-run, generation after generation (Bourguignon 1981). Several authors have ... (Show more)
The transmission of wealth is a matter that has long been central to the debate over inequality and its impact on society. Theoretical models of inequality predict the consolidation of wealth into an elite group, along with its persistence in the long-run, generation after generation (Bourguignon 1981). Several authors have shown how elite often introduce mechanisms reinforcing inequality all the while influencing, or holding, power (e.g., Acemoglu and Robinson 2006; Amsden, DiCaprio, and Robinson 2012; Lenski 2013; Ager 2013). Within this context, recent scholarship has demonstrated the key role that shocks of different sorts – wars, plagues, and institutional crisis – have in affecting elite persistence through slowing down, if not temporarily reversing, the process of wealth consolidation and its impact on power (e.g., Piketty 2014; Alfani 2015; Scheidel 2017; Atkinson 2018).
Albeit long-term evidence on elite persistence and intergenerational wealth transmission is growing for developed countries in the Western world (e.g., Clark and Cummins 2015; Atkinson 2018; Black et al. 2020), little is known for other territories. This is especially problematic when it comes to societies renowned for being highly unequal. One such case is that of former slave-based plantation societies in the Caribbean. These territories are deemed among the most unequal societies in the past, and remain among the most unequal in current days (Caribbean Development Bank 2016). However, aggregate inequality levels can hide patterns of wealth transmission and elite persistence, especially in the face of major shocks.
The present paper examines the research question ‘How did intergenerational wealth transmission and elite persistence develop in slave-based sugar plantation societies in the West Indies long-run?’ relying on the case study of the Danish West Indies – current-days American Virgin Islands. The study takes a long-term perspective, spanning the mid eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. This timeframe consents to study long-term developments in intergenerational wealth transmission and elite formation and the impact that major shocks and threats – Napoleonic Wars, slave trade abolition and emancipation, competition from sugar beet – had on wealth transmission and elite persistence.
The study relies on a novel dataset compiled from tax registers and census data for the whole population of the territory under examination. The dataset contains most, if not all, of the assets that made up wealth in slave-based plantation societies: real estate, agricultural land, slaves, and other buildings along with the prices they fetched on the market, upon which the study relies to estimate wealth at the household-head level. Information on demographics, along with names and geographic location, are employed to link individuals over time and to identify heirs across generations.
Based upon this information, the paper studies different aspects of intergenerational transmission of wealth and its persistence, including 1) the profile of individuals belonging within the top percentiles over time and their role within society; 2) the effect of shocks on intergenerational transmission of wealth and on elite persistence. Descriptive and inferential statistics, in the form of rank regression, are employed for the purpose of the paper. (Show less)

Gudmundur Jonsson : Economic Inequality in Preindustrial Iceland: a Study of Wealth Distribution in 1703
The high concentration of landed wealth in early modern Iceland is well documented thanks to cadastral registers dating from the 17th and early 18th centuries. However, studies specifically analysing distribution of wealth across the country and between classes have not been done until now. This paper explores in detail ownership ... (Show more)
The high concentration of landed wealth in early modern Iceland is well documented thanks to cadastral registers dating from the 17th and early 18th centuries. However, studies specifically analysing distribution of wealth across the country and between classes have not been done until now. This paper explores in detail ownership of land and wealth distribution in Iceland in 1703 focusing on private property including both real estate and moveable assets, notably livestock and fishing boats. In contrast to many European studies of wealth distribution in the early modern period the study encompasses all householders in the country, not just landowners. We seek to include not only taxable real estate but all landed property by estimating the value of property owned by the Church and the Crown exempted from tax. Such a comprehensive study should give us a fairly good picture of overall economic inequality within society at one particular point around the turn of the 18th century.

This study has been undertaken within the research project The pillars of rural society. Family and household economy in early eighteenth century Iceland (http://1703.hi.is/en) It makes use of three exceptionally rich sources emanating from the work of a Royal Commission set up by the Danish King in 1702 to investigate conditions in Iceland in the wake of years of hardship. These are the national census of 1703, a livestock count from the same year, and the Cadastral Register of Árni Magnússon and Páll Vídalín 1702–1714. Information on the population, livestock and landed property has been entered into a database which allows us to analyse wealth data on different levels of aggregation, from individuals to regions and the whole country. The paper presents the results of the research including the value, composition and ownership of wealth, wealth distribution among social classes, and measures of wealth inequality. (Show less)

Piotr Korys, Maciej Tyminski : Fighting Inequality. The Spatial Dimension of Economic Development in Communist and Post-communist Poland (1950-1995)
The goal of the paper is to analyze the spatial evolution of the economic development of communist Poland. Using the existing data on national income and employment structure the authors reconstruct the spatial structure at the voivodeship level. During the People's Republic of Poland, the borders of voivodeships were changed ... (Show more)
The goal of the paper is to analyze the spatial evolution of the economic development of communist Poland. Using the existing data on national income and employment structure the authors reconstruct the spatial structure at the voivodeship level. During the People's Republic of Poland, the borders of voivodeships were changed several times. Authors use the 1976-1997 administrative division (with as many as 49 small voivodships) and project backward estimates of economic development indicators (GDP, industrial output, NI) using data on employment and investment structure (available at the level of districts).

One of the most important goals of communist economic policy was common and mass industrialization oriented on minimizing developmental inequalities between regions. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine whether the modernization efforts of the Communist Party and the transition period reduced (as planned) or rather exacerbated the economic inequality between regions. (Show less)



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