Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/195951 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Citation: 
[Journal:] PLoS ONE [ISSN:] 1932-6203 [Volume:] 14 [Issue:] 4, April [Publisher:] PLOS [Place:] San Francisco, CA [Year:] 2019 [Pages:] 1-32
Publisher: 
PLOS, San Francisco, CA
Abstract: 
Where should we look to understand the origin of inequality? I propose an unusual window of evidence—modern societies. I hypothesize that evidence for the origin of inequality is encoded in the institutional structure of industrial societies. To test this idea, I use a model to project modern trends into the past. This model takes the modern relation between energy, hierarchy, and inequality and creates a hindcast of the origin of inequality. The results are broadly consistent with the available evidence. The model predicts an explosion of inequality with the transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture, followed by a plateau. This finding potentially opens a new window of evidence into the origin of inequality.
Subjects: 
energy
hierarchy
inequality
JEL: 
P18
P28
P48
Q4
D3
P16
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
URL of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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