Unequal English Wealth since 1670
利用1670年至1911年的新数据,研究英国财富分配的变化,发现工业革命期间顶层阶级与中产阶级的财富差距扩大,但非人力净值的总体不平等因土地份额变化而未加剧。
New data on probated wealth, landownership, debts, and occupations extend our view of the distribution of English wealth back from 1911 to 1670. There were widening gaps in mean wealth between the top landed-plus-merchant classes and the middle classes across the Industrial Revolution century. Size distributions for individual assets also widened. So did those for income or total wealth (including human). But nonhuman net worth did not become more unequal because of important shifts in the land share. All inequality measures before 1914 exceeded all those since 1950. The estimates illuminate classical theories of distribution.