Epidemics, Inequality, and Poverty in Preindustrial and Early Industrial Times
梳理了从公元540年查士丁尼瘟疫到19世纪霍乱等重大流行病对收入、财富和健康不平等的影响，发现结果不仅取决于死亡率，还受制度框架等因素调节，并探讨了流行病减少贫困的两种机制：向穷人再分配或消灭穷人。
Recent research has explored the distributive consequences of major historical epidemics, and the current crisis triggered by COVID-19 prompts us to look at the past for insights about how pandemics can affect inequalities in income, wealth, and health. The fourteenth-century Black Death, which is usually believed to have led to a significant reduction in economic inequality, has attracted the greatest attention. However, the picture becomes much more complex if other epidemics are considered. This article covers the worst epidemics of preindustrial times, from the Plague of Justinian of 540–41 to the last great European plagues of the seventeenth century, as well as the cholera waves of the nineteenth. It shows how the distributive outcomes of lethal epidemics do not only depend upon mortality rates, but are mediated by a range of factors, chief among them the institutional framework in place at the onset of each crisis. It then explores how past epidemics affected poverty, arguing that highly lethal epidemics could reduce its prevalence through two deeply different mechanisms: redistribution toward the poor or extermination of the poor. It concludes by recalling the historical connection between the progressive weakening and spacing in time of lethal epidemics and improvements in life expectancy, and by discussing how epidemics affected inequality in health and living standards.