Publication: Income inequality in central Spain, 1690-1800
Loading...
Identifiers
Publication date
2011-01
Defense date
Authors
Advisors
Tutors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
This paper studies the evolution of income inequality in central Spain during the late seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, taking as case study the province of Guadalajara. The first part of the
paper presents the sources and the dataset that was created to estimate income inequality using
grain tithes. The second section shows that through the period grain represented the lion share of
total income and therefore that it can be used as a reliable proxy. The following part of the paper
introduces an analysis of income inequality in the province during the period 1690 1800 and
concludes that inequality decreased during the last third of the eighteenth century. Finally the
paper addresses thisunexpected result and concludes that itwas consequence of the success of the
land reform carried out by the central government in the late 1760s. The reform was a success in
Guadalajara, thanks to the characteristics of its population and the lack of bargaining power of
pressure groups.
Description
Keywords
Agrarian history, Inequality, Pressure groups, Institutions
Bibliographic citation
Explorations in Economic History, 2011, v. 48, n. 1, p. 83-96