Economic History Review最新文献

In this paper we present the first estimate of the full income distribution in pre-industrial Sweden (including present-day Finland). We draw on the schedule and the individual assessments devised by the authorities to distribute the 1613 Älvsborg ransom taxation to estimate income inequality, as well as the income shares of the top quantiles and of various social groups. We find that Sweden was relatively equal compared with other early modern European societies, for two main reasons: first, because the nobility, the clergy, the burghers, and other middle-rank social groups all held relatively small shares of the total income, and second, because the landless groups were less numerous in Sweden than in other societies. This resulted in a large share of the total income going to the relatively homogeneous group of landed peasants, who made up the majority of the population. Our study thus speaks to the political historiography of early modern Sweden, within which negotiation and collaboration between the landed peasantry and the state has been seen as pivotal to the state formation process.

The Sokoto Caliphate of northern Nigeria was the workshop of West Africa in the pre-colonial nineteenth century, producing famous blue-black cloth that reached many markets south of the Sahara as well as across it. Under British colonial rule this large handicraft textile industry was faced with the winds of foreign competition. We rely on a newly digitized set of colonial district reports to measure the impact of trade on northern Nigerian textile manufacturing and find that (contrary to British expectations) areas closer to railway stations were less likely to experience industrial decline. We argue that the resilience of local textiles relied on the low opportunity cost of dry-season labour. Analysing a piece of tax microdata, we show that a low opportunity cost of labour outside of the rainy season was associated with a higher likelihood of engaging in textile by-employment. Seasonal changes in relative factor prices were a trap as well as a refuge. Part-time employment limited specialization and technological innovation, and can help to explain why northern Nigerian textiles eventually declined. Thus, beyond our particular case study, these results contribute to our understanding of the role of seasonality in determining the structure and pace of development of tropical economies.

A dataset of just under 10,000 work tasks gleaned from court depositions that records women's as well as men's work, and unpaid as well as paid activities, prompts a reassessment of the transformation of the early modern economy and women's role within it. Rather than sectoral change in production activities with a growth of manufacturing at the expense of agriculture, the evidence suggests that work tasks changed little over time despite occupational specialization increasing. Women's labour force participation is shown to contribute 44 per cent of work in the economy, rather than 30 per cent as in previous estimates. This is partly because of the importance of commercialized housework and care work, which has been largely overlooked in existing models of the early modern economy. Turning to waged work, findings confirm that men's and women's participation in paid agricultural work were linked, with women being employed in greater numbers when men were not available. However, these trends had a strong relationship with access to land, a factor that has been neglected in comparison with demographic trends and the cost of consumables. The organization of work was transformed in the seventeenth century as the number of completely landless households increased rapidly.

The Song dynasty (960–1279 A.D.) witnessed a surge of scientific and technological development, notably in mechanical engineering, metallurgy, shipbuilding and nautics, civil engineering, manufacturing, etc. At the same time, Neo-Confucianism, which advocated ‘upholding heavenly principle and annihilating human desire’, flourished in Song time. The rise of Neo-Confucianism as a conservative movement appeared fundamentally at odds with the splendid technological achievements in Medieval China. To address the question, we dismantle the notion of Neo-Confucianism in the Song dynasty context by constructing the indices of the Neo-Confucian spirit characterized by the pursuit of principle (li), broad learning, and scepticism on the basis of Song Confucian works recorded in the Records of Song and Yuan scholarship (Song Yuan xue an). Our results show that the popularity of Neo-Confucianism facilitated the development of science and technology during the Song period. Using historical Confucian academy data compiled from several extensive surveys, we show that the vigorous development of the Confucian academies served as a channel to propagate the Neo-Confucian spirit in a locality, thereby influencing the scientific and technological output of the Song era.

This paper studies legal disparities between men and women in a patriarchal framework. Throughout history, women have confronted discrimination in matters of inheritance, property ownership, and various other legal rights. We examine the consequences of legal discrimination for women's differential engagement and success within legal conflicts, using data from Ottoman courts in the early nineteenth century. The results show that women were parties to approximately 30 per cent of cases, with a modest gender gap of around eight to ten percentage points in terms of plaintiff win rates. The gap varied across courts and types of cases, consistent with gender disparities in legal knowledge and trial stakes in patriarchal societies. Notably, when litigating against male defendants, the disparity was more pronounced in provincial courts (Konya and Kütahya), as opposed to courts in the capital city (Galata and Üsküdar). Similarly, while the gender gap was greater in property and probate cases than those involving personal crimes and commercial exchange, the gap was reversed in family matters. The analysis suggests that a significant portion of the gender gap in litigation success can be attributed to disparities in evidence presentation (witness testimonies, written documents and legal opinions).