Economic History Review最新文献

On the basis of a new dataset of top wealth holdings at the taxpayer level for the Swiss canton of Zurich from 1880 to 1952, this article makes two main contributions. First, we provide an estimate of the top 0.1 per cent wealth share and show that wealth concentration in Zurich exhibited significant stability in comparative perspective. Second, we provide a collective portrait of the top 0.1 per cent wealth share, highlighting patterns of continuity and change. If inheritance played a paramount role, genuine ‘rentiers’ remained a minority in comparison with businessmen active in family firms which they had inherited. We also identify a significant share of wealthy women. By combining biographical and genealogical information, we analyse the persistence of top fortunes. In 1952, 35 per cent of the top 0.1 per cent wealth was owned by taxpayers who were related – kinship-wise – to the richest taxpayers of the late nineteenth century. Overall, we highlight how collective biography approaches can contribute to debates on wealth concentration and transmission. As top wealth tends to be concentrated in specific locations, we also underscore how studies focusing on specific cities and regions can improve our understanding of these mechanisms.

This article examines the relationship between national politics, sovereign default, credit rationing, and their effects on fiscal revenues and exports in nineteenth-century Colombia. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis, it challenges existing narratives on Colombia's lack of sustained nineteenth-century export-led development, showing that sovereign default was a political choice with long-term negative impacts. The study highlights how credit rationing and technological backwardness hindered economic growth. It argues that these policies caused Colombia's economic stagnation, leading to boom-and-bust cycles in export crop production. It identifies substantial growth during the liberal era and minimal growth during the regeneración period.

Despite significant advances in the quantitative study of African history, the Portuguese colonial empire remains an underexplored topic. This paper provides the first quantitative assessment of worker living standards in Angola and Mozambique, contextualized within a broader comparison of colonial African empires. Using the barebones subsistence basket method to construct welfare ratios, as well as focusing specifically on the African mining sector, this research offers a comprehensive cross-temporal and cross-geographical analysis. Key findings reveal two major patterns: until 1960, welfare ratios in the Portuguese empire were notably lower than in other territories, with this disparity widening after the Second World War. However, starting in the 1960s, welfare ratios in Angola and Mozambique began to rapidly and consistently increase, closing the gap that had widened in the post-war period and achieving improvements in living standards within a few years that typically took decades to achieve elsewhere. The findings are then interpreted through an in-depth case study approach, demonstrating how the persistence of forced labour systems under the Portuguese Empire contributed to the consistently low living standards of workers. The unexpected abolition of these coercive systems in 1961 marked the beginning of rapid improvements in living standards, underscoring the critical role of institutional changes within history. This research enhances our understanding of the functioning of coercive labour markets as well as of Africa's diverse colonial experiences.