Was Malthus right? The relationship between population and real wages in Italian history, 1320 to 1870

Chiarini, Bruno

doi:10.1016/j.eeh.2010.05.001

Cited by 25 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The estimated IR shows that contrary to the Malthusian scheme, the income‐population feedback which predicts that a better standard of living leads to population growth did not occur in pre‐industrial Italy (Figure ). This result is consistent with Chiarini (), who stresses that the empirical result, albeit consistent with the “old age security motive”, is also explained by a process of human capital accumulation in which households substitute child quantity for child quality (parents investing in education). As Figure shows, there is some significant evidence for the population's negative response to rural wages (the main source of income).…”

Section: Vector Error Correction Analysis: Simulation Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

“…The standard explanation for economic stagnation in the pre‐industrial era, namely the Malthusian income‐population feedback, which suggests that a better standard of living leads to a population increase, does not apply to pre‐industrial Italy. This result is consistent with Chiarini (), according to whom the most plausible theoretical explanations are the old‐age security motive as well as a primitive process of human capital accumulation (parents replaced child quantity with child quality). However, this is the only evidence, along with the urbanisation rate, that indicates a possible deviation from the Malthusian regime.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…The standard explanation for economic stagnation in the pre-industrial era, namely the Malthusian income-population feedback, which suggests that a better standard of living leads to a population increase, does not apply to preindustrial Italy. This result is consistent with Chiarini (2010), according to whom 2 Although the data pose serious problems, there is a large and growing body of literature that studies economic and demographic relationships in pre-industrial Europe. See Weir (1989), Lee and Anderson (2002), Malanima (2005), Clark (2007), and Crafts and Mills (2009).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 85%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Urbanisation and Agricultural Productivity: Why Did the Splendour of the Italian Cities in the Sixteenth Century Not Lead to Transition?

Chiarini¹,

Marzano²

2018

Kyklos

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary In this paper, we investigate the relationships among total population, wages and the urban population in the Italian economy during the period 1320‐1870. From the late Middle Ages to the Early Modern age (the Italian Renaissance), the prevailing conditions were those of a poor, mainly agricultural economy with rudimentary technology. However, these centuries witnessed considerable growth of urban centres. The question that drives this paper is why the development of Italian cities in the sixteenth century did not lead to sustained growth. Using a vector autoregression (VAR) model, we provide a picture of a trapped economy in which urbanisation was unable to trigger a persistent process of development because migration to cities had negative consequences for rural marginal productivity. The demand for a young and healthy labour force from the urban sector was not adequately supported by the productivity of the agricultural sector, which suffered from a lack of technological innovation.

show abstract

Section: Vector Error Correction Analysis: Simulation Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 85%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Urbanisation and Agricultural Productivity: Why Did the Splendour of the Italian Cities in the Sixteenth Century Not Lead to Transition?

Chiarini¹,

Marzano²

2018

Kyklos

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Both Fernihough, ‘Malthusian dynamics’, and Malanima, ‘Le crisi tradizionali’, reach the same results with different procedures. A non‐Malthusian view of the Italian economy is presented by Chiarini, ‘Was Malthus right?’.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Italy in the Renaissance: a leading economy in the European context, 1350–1550

Malanima

2017

The Economic History Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A well‐known debate on the Renaissance economy was held in this journal in 1962–4 between Roberto S. Lopez and Harry Miskimin on one hand and Carlo M. Cipolla on the other. More than half a century later, this topic can be reconsidered in the light of much wider information on the late medieval/early modern Italian economy. Using data on population, urbanization, prices, wages, and GDP, this article outlines the macroeconomic trends in central and northern Italy in the age of the Renaissance (1350–1550). The frequent plagues during the early Renaissance—that is, between 1348 and 1450—decimated the population, probably causing more deaths than in other European countries. Hence resources per worker increased and labour productivity, incomes, and standards of living improved remarkably. A favourable economic environment thus seems to have been a pre‐condition for the Renaissance in culture, art, and politics and the spread of new kinds of consumer demand. From the middle of the fifteenth century, living standards gradually worsened and eventually reached the low levels that had prevailed prior to the Renaissance.

show abstract

“…Earlier international research on the effect of economic stress on the population in the pre-industrial period has largely relied on real wages or grain prices as indicators of living or nutritional standards (Wrigley and Schofield 1989, pp. 368-384;Galloway 1988Galloway , 1994Lee and Anderson 2002;Nicolini 2007;Bengtsson and Broström 2011;Bengtsson and Ohlsson 1985;Dribe 2003;Crafts and Mills 2009;Pfister and Fertig 2010;Chiarini 2010;Klemp 2012;Møller and Sharp 2014;Klemp and Møller forthcoming). 1 Malthusians often point to the development of real wages, which fell from the late Middle Ages to the early nineteenth century, to advance their main proposition that population growth outpaced production (Allen 2001;Clark 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The response of vital rates to harvest fluctuations in pre-industrial Sweden

Edvinsson

2016

Cliometrica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study examines whether there was a Malthusian equilibrium mechanism in Sweden in the pre-industrial period. A unique data set on harvests, deaths, marriages and births going back to 1630 is used to calculate cumulative elasticities of vital rates with respect to harvest. While earlier studies have mostly focused on the impact of real wage, this study uses the calorie content of per capita harvests as an indicator of living standards. It finds that there indeed was a response of vital rates to harvest fluctuations, but there were important structural breaks. While positive checks attenuated after 1720, preventive checks were strengthened. After 1870 preventive checks disappeared, and possibly also positive checks. The results are robust to different models and trend specifications, with one crucial difference: while the distributed lag model shows that positive checks were significant up to 1920, the SVAR model shows that positive checks disappeared after 1870.

show abstract

Was Malthus right? The relationship between population and real wages in Italian history, 1320 to 1870

Cited by 25 publications

References 26 publications

Urbanisation and Agricultural Productivity: Why Did the Splendour of the Italian Cities in the Sixteenth Century Not Lead to Transition?

Urbanisation and Agricultural Productivity: Why Did the Splendour of the Italian Cities in the Sixteenth Century Not Lead to Transition?

Italy in the Renaissance: a leading economy in the European context, 1350–1550

The response of vital rates to harvest fluctuations in pre-industrial Sweden

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About