A study of economic inequality in the light of fiscal sources: the case of Catalonia (14th-18th centuries)

Abstract

This essay aims to present the first results of an ongoing research project devoted to study the evolution of the economic inequality in Catalonia based on different documentary sources and parameters. Here we focus on the strengths and limits of the rich fiscal sources preserved between the 14th and 18th century allowing us an analysis of inequality. This study is limited to the period before 1716 because we do not consider totally reliable connecting data from taxes before this moment, essentially focused on immovable wealth, with those from the Cadastre, which was levied on a wide range of incomes.

n search of the ideal husband. Could inequality in the pre-industrial era be measured through dowries? North-eastern Catalonia, 1750-1825

“…Indeed, for the Catalan case, a series of direct taxes on wealth existed since medieval times, being particularly outstanding those known as "Talles i Estimes". Recently, some first attempts to measure inequality from this documentary source have been performed (Morelló et al, 2020;Reixach, 2022). Certainly, using them enables the comparability with other Mediterranean regions where homonymous sources exist, such as the Italian "Estimi", which have also recently given rise to inequality measurements (Alfani, 2015(Alfani, , 2017Alfani and Di Tullio, 2019).…”

“…2 An exhaustive bibliographical synthesis of these works can be found in Alfani (2021) and Scheidel (2017). For the Spanish case see, among others, the works of Carlos Santiago-Caballero (2011), Esteban Nicolini and Fernando Ramos-Palencia (2016), Gabriel Brea-Martínez and Joana Pujadas-Mora (2019), Héctor García-Montero (2020) and Jordi Morelló Baget et al (2020).…”