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Unequal English Wealth since 1670
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This paper studied the distribution of English wealth from 1911 to 1670 and found that there were widening gaps in mean wealth between the top landed-plus-merchant classes and the middle classes across the Industrial Revolution century.Abstract:
New data on probated wealth, landownership, debts, and occupations extend our view of the distribution of English wealth back from 1911 to 1670. There were widening gaps in mean wealth between the top landed-plus-merchant classes and the middle classes across the Industrial Revolution century. Size distributions for individual assets also widened. So did those for income or total wealth (including human). But nonhuman net worth did not become more unequal because of important shifts in the land share. All inequality measures before 1914 exceeded all those since 1950. The estimates illuminate classical theories of distribution.read more
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Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
Daron Acemoglu,James A. Robinson +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a model of the distribution of power in a democratic system and the role of the middle class in the creation and consolidation of the system, as well as a dynamic model of democratic consolidation.
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Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective
Daron Acemoglu,James A. Robinson +1 more
TL;DR: The authors argued that these political reforms can be viewed as strategic decisions by the political elite to prevent widespread social unrest and revolution, while the extension of the franchise changes future political equilibria and acts as a commitment to redistribution.
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Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth Since the Eighteenth Century
TL;DR: A minimal theory of social transfers and a guide to the tests for accounting for social spending, jobs and growth in the OECD Appendices is given in this paper, along with an explanation of the rise of mass public schooling.
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Why Did West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Ineqiality and Growth in Historical Perspective
Daron Acemoglu,James A. Robinson +1 more
TL;DR: This paper argued that these political reforms can be viewed as strategic decisions by political elites to prevent widespread social unrest and revolution, which led to unprecedented redistributive programs in the nineteeth century.
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Inequality in Landownership, the Emergence of Human-Capital Promoting Institutions, and the Great Divergence
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors suggest that inequality in the distribution of landownership adversely affected the emergence of human-capital promoting institutions (e.g. public schooling), and thus the pace and the nature of the transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy, contributing to the divergence in income per capita across countries.
References
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Principles of Economics
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a survey of the general relations of demand, supply, and value in terms of land, labour, capital, and industrial organization, with an emphasis on the fertility of land.
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Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy
TL;DR: Nathanson's clear-sighted abridgment of the Principles of Political Economy as mentioned in this paper provides a challenging, sometimes surprising account of Mill's views on many important topics: socialism, population, the status of women, the cultural bases of economic productivity, the causes and possible cures of poverty, the nature of property rights, taxation, and the legitimate functions of government.