Inheritance Institutions and Landholding Inequality in Nineteenth-Century Germany: Evidence from Hesse-Cassel Villages and Towns
研究了1850年代德国黑森-卡塞尔公国约一千个农业村镇的继承制度与土地持有不平等的关系，发现不可分割继承制度导致更高的土地不平等，而移民有助于缓解这种不平等。
This paper considers the German principality of Hesse-Cassel in the 1850s, comparing inheritance institutions and landholding inequality for roughly a thousand mostly agricultural villages and towns. The principality lay between impartible northern Europe and the partible southwest. Inequality in landholding size is measured, showing an average Gini of 0.615 and substantial variation across communities. Places with relatively larger populations and ones that practiced impartible inheritance had mostly higher wealth inequality. The main result is that inheritance norms played a role in causing higher landholding inequality. Higher emigration rates in the impartible communities helped to alleviate landholding inequality.