Pre‐Industrial Inequality

TLDR

The study examines whether pre‑industrial societies exhibited income inequality comparable to modern levels, questioning the Industrial Revolution’s role in shaping inequality. The article aims to estimate individual‑level inequality in 28 pre‑industrial societies using social tables. The authors use social tables to compute the inequality possibility frontier and inequality extraction ratio, comparing observed inequality to the maximum feasible extraction at each income level. The analysis reveals that pre‑industrial inequality patterns provide fresh insights into the long‑run relationship between inequality and economic development.

Abstract

Is inequality largely the result of the Industrial Revolution? Or, were pre‐industrial incomes as unequal as they are today? This article infers inequality across individuals within each of the 28 pre‐industrial societies, for which data were available, using what are known as social tables. It applies two new concepts: the inequality possibility frontier and the inequality extraction ratio. They compare the observed income inequality to the maximum feasible inequality that, at a given level of income, might have been 'extracted' by those in power. The results give new insights into the connection between inequality and economic development in the very long run.