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Memorandum, Department of Economics, University of Oslo >
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http://hdl.handle.net/10419/47275
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| Title: | | Inequality and growth in the very long run: Inferring inequality from data on social groups  |
| Authors: | | Modalsli, Jørgen Heibø |
| Issue Date: | | 2011 |
| Series/Report no.: | | Memorandum // Department of Economics, University of Oslo 2011,11 |
| Abstract: | | Income distribution data from before the Industrial Revolution usually comes in the shape of social tables: inventories of a range of social groups and their mean incomes. These are frequently reported without adjusting for within-group income dispersion, leading to a systematic downward bias in the reporting of pre-industrial inequality. This paper suggests a correction method, and applies it to an existing collection of twenty-five social tables, from Rome in AD 1 to India in 1947. The corrections, using a variety of assumptions on within-group dispersion, lead to substantial increases in the Gini coeffcients. Combining the inequality levels with data on GDP, a robust positive relationship between income inequality and economic growth is confirmed. This supports earlier proposals, based on fewer data points, of a 'super Kuznets curve' of increasing inequality over the entire pre-industrial period. |
| Subjects: | | Pre-industrial inequality social tables Kuznets curve history |
| JEL: | | D31 N30 O11 C65 |
| Document Type: | | Working Paper |
| Appears in Collections: | | Memorandum, Department of Economics, University of Oslo
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