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Estimating Historical Inequality from Social Tables: Towards Methodological Consistency

von Fintel, Dieter ; Links, Calumet LU and Green, Erik LU (2023) In Lund Papers in Economic History. p.1-36
Abstract
Research on long-term historical inequality has expanded to include previously neglected periods and societies, particularly in the global South. This is partly due to the resurgence of the social tables method in economic history, an approach which uses archival records to reconstruct income and wealth distributions in contexts where micro data is unavailable. This method
can cause a downward bias in estimating inequality, but there is limited evidence of this bias in economic history. We collected a new data set of 108 historical social tables spanning over a 1000 years. We found that the compilers consistently made careful methodological choices that took data limitations into account. We found that the inequality estimates are not... (More)
Research on long-term historical inequality has expanded to include previously neglected periods and societies, particularly in the global South. This is partly due to the resurgence of the social tables method in economic history, an approach which uses archival records to reconstruct income and wealth distributions in contexts where micro data is unavailable. This method
can cause a downward bias in estimating inequality, but there is limited evidence of this bias in economic history. We collected a new data set of 108 historical social tables spanning over a 1000 years. We found that the compilers consistently made careful methodological choices that took data limitations into account. We found that the inequality estimates are not systematically related to the number of classes chosen or the size of the top class, but that choosing bottom classes that bundle together even small variations in income or wealth can introduce a downward bias to the inequality estimates. This drawback can be overcome by using methodological cohesion to mitigate the problem of limited information about the poorest classes in colonial archives. (Less)
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author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Social tables, Gini, inequality, pre-industrial, grouped data
in
Lund Papers in Economic History.
issue
2023:247
pages
1 - 36
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
7785ebb7-0da5-4076-b341-e21dd7688bfa
date added to LUP
2023-03-10 07:36:40
date last changed
2023-03-10 08:59:16
@misc{7785ebb7-0da5-4076-b341-e21dd7688bfa,
  abstract     = {{Research on long-term historical inequality has expanded to include previously neglected periods and societies, particularly in the global South. This is partly due to the resurgence of the social tables method in economic history, an approach which uses archival records to reconstruct income and wealth distributions in contexts where micro data is unavailable. This method<br/>can cause a downward bias in estimating inequality, but there is limited evidence of this bias in economic history. We collected a new data set of 108 historical social tables spanning over a 1000 years. We found that the compilers consistently made careful methodological choices that took data limitations into account. We found that the inequality estimates are not systematically related to the number of classes chosen or the size of the top class, but that choosing bottom classes that bundle together even small variations in income or wealth can introduce a downward bias to the inequality estimates. This drawback can be overcome by using methodological cohesion to mitigate the problem of limited information about the poorest classes in colonial archives.}},
  author       = {{von Fintel, Dieter and Links, Calumet and Green, Erik}},
  keywords     = {{Social tables; Gini; inequality; pre-industrial; grouped data}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{2023:247}},
  pages        = {{1--36}},
  series       = {{Lund Papers in Economic History.}},
  title        = {{Estimating Historical Inequality from Social Tables: Towards Methodological Consistency}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/140059326/LUPEH_247.pdf}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}