Measuring Ancient Inequality

Milanovic, Branko ; Lindert, Peter H. ; Williamson, Jeffrey G.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ABSOLUTE POVERTY;    ABSOLUTE POVERTY LINE;    ACCOUNTING;    ADVANCED COUNTRIES;    ANNUAL INCOME;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4412
RP-ID  :  WPS4412

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Is inequality largely the result of theIndustrial Revolution? Or, were pre-industrial incomes andlife expectancies as unequal as they are today?For want ofsufficient data, these questions have not yet been answered.This paper infers inequality for 14 ancient, pre-industrialsocieties using what are known as social tables, stretchingfrom the Roman Empire 14 AD, to Byzantium in 1000, toEngland in 1688, to Nueva España around 1790, to China in1880 and to British India in 1947. It applies two newconcepts in making those assessments - what the authors callthe inequality possibility frontier and the inequalityextraction ratio. Rather than simply offering measures ofactual inequality, the authors compare the latter with themaximum feasible inequality (or surplus) that could havebeen extracted by the elite. The results, especially whencompared with modern poor countries, give new insights in tothe connection between inequality and economic developmentin the very long run.