IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/exehis/v95y2025ics0014498324000561.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Poverty in Germany from the Black Death until the Beginning of Industrialization

Author

Listed:
  • Alfani, Guido
  • Gierok, Victoria
  • Schaff, Felix

Abstract

This paper provides macro-level estimates of the prevalence of poverty in preindustrial Germany, from the Black Death to the onset of industrialization in the nineteenth century. Based on a new body of evidence we show that poverty declined after two large-scale catastrophes: the Black Death in the fourteenth century and the Thirty Years’ War in the seventeenth. Poverty increased substantially in the sixteenth century, and stagnated in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This pattern is broadly in line with a Malthusian model of the preindustrial economy, but also with several other explanations of poverty. Circa 1600, poverty and inequality extraction were at a historical peak – right when social conflict erupted in Germany.

Suggested Citation

  • Alfani, Guido & Gierok, Victoria & Schaff, Felix, 2025. "Poverty in Germany from the Black Death until the Beginning of Industrialization," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:exehis:v:95:y:2025:i:c:s0014498324000561
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101630
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014498324000561
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101630?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inequality; Poverty; Preindustrial Germany; Inequality Extraction;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:exehis:v:95:y:2025:i:c:s0014498324000561. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622830 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.