Working papers results

2015 - n° 84
This article provides a general chronology of Italian famines, incorporating earlier chronologies as well as recent research on preindustrial mortality crises and covering the whole period from circa 1250 to 1810. Hypotheses about the occurrence of famines are tested using the largest-existing database of time series of burials, covering northern Italy and part of central Italy, as well as a database of time series of wheat prices covering the whole of the Peninsula. The role played by food provisioning institutions is briefly detailed and a summary discussion of the causative factors of famines is provided. We argue that the majority of the most severe medieval and early modern famines happen when a situation of high demographic pressure on the available resources couples with periods of meteorological instability of the kind unfavorable to wheat crops, and the crisis is so widespread that institutions are unable to provide effective remedies.
Guido Alfani, Luca Mocarelli, Donatella Strangio
Keywords: Famines; famines chronology; hunger; mortality crises; preindustrial period; middle ages; early modern period; history; historical demography; malthusian traps; agrarian change; food provisioning; food security
2015 - n° 82
This paper analyzes how advanced Medieval and Early Modern Italian economies attempted to cope with famines. First, it provides an overview of the occurrence of famines and food shortages in Italy from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, underlining the connections with overall climatic and demographic trends. Second, it focuses on the 1590s famine (the worst to affect Italy in the period), providing a general discussion and interpretation of its causes and characteristics, and describing and evaluating the strategies for coping with the crisis that developed within the Republic of Genoa and the Duchy of Ferrara. The article argues that when such a large-scale food crisis as that of the 1590s occurred, public action played a key role in providing relief.
Guido Alfani
Keywords: famine; mortality crises; subsistence crises; Italy; early modern period; 1590s; markets integration; grain trade; agrarian innovation
2015 - n° 79
This paper provides some initial results of long-term trends in economic inequality in Catalonia from 1400-1800 ca. These first findings show that the evidence collected for Catalonia matches quite well with some hypotheses suggested previously in the literature. Namely, the high inequality levels prevalent across pre-industrial Europe; an inequality gradient that linked urban, more populated, and wealthier communities with greater inequality and vice versa; and the importance of the trends followed by the share owned by the wealthy as good predictors of economic inequality trends. However, at this stage, one of the most appealing propositions—the idea that economic inequality grew for the whole of Europe during the early-modern period, shaping a long left side of a “super Kuznets curve”—does not seem to be fully confirmed for Catalonia. From the mid-17th century, inequality growth seems to go hand-in-hand with growth in per capita GDP. In earlier periods, though, the inequality trend seems to be unrelated to economic growth and even, during the second half of the 16th century, there is some evidence of inequality decline coupled with economic growth.
Hector Garcia-Montero
Keywords: Economic inequality; social inequality; wealth distribution; income distribution; middle ages; early modern period; Catalonia; Spain
2015 - n° 75
ABSTRACT We investigate the effect of providing information about the benefits to children of attending formal child care when women intend to use formal child care so they can work. We postulate that the reaction to the information differs across women according to their characteristics, specifically their level of education. We present a randomized experiment in which 700 Italian women of reproductive age with no children are exposed to positive information about formal child care through a text message or a video, while others are not. We find a positive effect on the intention to use formal child care, and a negative effect on the intention to work. This average result hides important heterogeneities: the positive effect on formal child care use is driven by better-educated women, while the negative effect on work intention is found only among less-educated women. These findings may be explained by women’s education reflecting their work-family orientation, and their ability to afford formal child care.
Vincenzo Galasso, Paola Profeta, Chiara Pronzato, Francesco Billari
Keywords: female labour supply,education,gender roles
2015 - n° 73
ABSTRACT Nell'ambito delle ricerche di storia economica, l'area lucchese appare relativamente trascurata dalla più recente storiografia italiana ed in particolare toscana. A parte indagini a carattere principalmente politico o demografico, il ricco patrimonio documentario conservato negli archivi lucchesi è stato fino ad oggi solo parzialmente sfruttato. Questa ricerca intende apportare nuovi dati e riflessioni inedite al dibattito che vede lo studio della disuguaglianza nella distribuzione della ricchezza come questione chiave nell’analisi dello sviluppo economico nel lungo periodo. Attraverso i dati rintracciabili negli estimi trecenteschi e cinquecenteschi e nel Catasto guinigiano dei primi anni del Quattrocento, fonti fiscali che si sono già dimostrate ottimi strumenti per misurare i livelli di ricchezza della popolazione censita e ricostruirne i trend macroeconomici di concentrazione, si cercherà di fornire un primo quadro d’insieme della distribuzione della proprietà nel contado della città della seta. Particolare attenzione sarà prestata anche al possibile impatto della Peste Nera che, stando alla storiografia più recente, pare aver determinato una lunga fase di declino nella disuguaglianza conclusasi solo attorno alla seconda metà del XV secolo. The area of Lucca seems relatively neglected by the most recent Italian economic historiography. Apart from research primarily devoted to political or demographic issues, some of which date back several decades, the rich documentary patrimony preserved in the archives of Lucca was until now only partially exploited. This paper aims to provide new data and reflections to the debate which sees the study of the inequality in the distribution of wealth as a key issue in the analysis of economic development in the long run. By using the data recorded by some fiscal registers (the estimi of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries and the catasto guinigiano of the early fifteenth century), a kind of source which already proved to be an excellent tool to measure the levels of wealth of the surveyed population and to reconstruct its macroeconomic trends of concentration, we will try to provide a first overview of the distribution of property in the countryside of the city of silk. A particular attention will be paid also to the possible impact of the Black Death which, according to the most recent literature, seems to have led to a long period of decline in inequality ended only around the second half of the fifteenth century.
Francesco Ammannti
Keywords: economic inequality; social inequality; wealth concentration; middle ages; early modern period; Tuscany; Italy; Lucca; plague; Black Death
2015 - n° 71
ABSTRACT This research note presents and compares some first findings obtained by the project EINITE-Economic Inequality across Italy and Europe, 1300-1800. The main aim of the project is to investigate long-term trends in economic inequality in Italy and in Europe. Here we compare previously published data for Piedmont with some early findings for Lombardy and Veneto, in order to provide a broad picture of northern Italian inequality. The period we cover is particularly long (13th–early 19th centuries) for Piedmont, while for Lombardy and Veneto a somewhat shorter period is considered (15th–18th centuries). We provide an in-depth analysis of the archival sources usable to study long-term changes in economic inequality in northern Italy, and we provide some key measures of inequality over time (Gini indexes, top percentiles). We find evidence of a tendency for Italian inequality to increase almost everywhere and almost continuously over time, since about 1400 or 1450, confirming what has been suggested by previous studies that focused on Piedmont and Tuscany.
Guido Alfani, Matteo Di Tullio
Keywords: economic inequality; wealth concentration; poverty; wealth; middle ages; early modern period; northern Italy; Republic of Venice; Sabaudian State; State of Milan; Piedmont; Lombardy; Veneto
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