IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wilwps/halshs-04753512.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Long-term trends in income and wealth inequality in southern Italy. The Kingdom of Naples (Apulia), sixteenth to eighteenth centuries

Author

Listed:
  • Guido Alfani

    (Bocconi University [Milan, Italy], Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality, Stone Center on Wealth Inequality and Social Mobility, WIL - World Inequality Lab)

  • Sergio Sardone

    (University of Naples Federico II = Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II)

Abstract

This paper uses new archival sources to study the long-term tendencies in economic inequality in preindustrial southern Italy (Kingdom of Naples). The paper reconstructs long-term trends in wealth inequality for the period 1550-1800 for a sample of communities in the region Apulia and produces estimates of overall inequality levels across the region. These estimates are compared with those which have recently been published for other Italian and European regions or states. The article also reconstructs the total income distribution for the mid-eighteenth century, then comparing wealth and income inequality. Overall, the evidence for the Kingdom of Naples suggests a tendency for economic inequality to grow continuously over the early modern period. As this was mostly a period of economic stagnation or decline for the Kingdom, the article provides further insights to the debate on the long-run relationship between economic growth and inequality change.

Suggested Citation

  • Guido Alfani & Sergio Sardone, 2024. "Long-term trends in income and wealth inequality in southern Italy. The Kingdom of Naples (Apulia), sixteenth to eighteenth centuries," World Inequality Lab Working Papers halshs-04753512, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wilwps:halshs-04753512
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04753512v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04753512v1/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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:hal:wilwps:halshs-04753512. 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: Caroline Bauer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.