Ancient Inequality

Is inequality largely the result of the Industrial Revolution? Or, were preindustrial incomes as unequal as they are today? For want of sufficient data, these questions have not yet been answered. This paper infers inequality for 29 ancient, pre-industrial societies using what are known as social tables, stretching from the Roman Empire 14 AD, to Byzantium in 1000, to England in 1688, to Nueva España around 1790, to China in 1880 and to British India in 1947. It applies two new concepts in making those assessments – what we call the inequality possibility frontier and the inequality extraction ratio. Rather than simply offering measures of inequality, we compare its observed level with the maximum feasible inequality (or surplus) that could have been extracted by the elite. The results, especially when compared with modern poor countries, give new insights into the connection between inequality and economic development in the very long run. We acknowledge help with the data from Ken Andrien, Carlos Bazdresch, Luis Bértola, Arne Bigsten, Maristella Botticini, Gwyn Cambell, David Clingingsmith, Metin Cosgel, Gustavo Delangel, Rafa Dobado González, Regina Grafe, Jan Luiten van Zanden, Paolo Malanima, Leandro Prados de la Escosura, Pierre van der Eng, Jim Roumasset, Jaime Salgado and Javier Rodriguez Weber. Without their generous help the paper would have been impossible. The paper has also been improved by the comments of participants at various meetings where it was presented: EHA (September 2007), CIDE (October 2007), Carlos III (December 2007), World Bank (February 2008), Canterbury (March 2008), Australian National University (April 2008), Monash (May 2008), Warwick (May 2008), Paris School of Economics (July 2008), Center for Global Development (September 2008), IISH (October 2008), and Wisconsin (October 2008). We are also grateful for comments from Mihail Arandarenko, Francisco Ferreira, Andrew Leigh, Jaime PozueloMonfort, and Martin Ravallion. Lindert and Williamson acknowledge financial support from the National Science Foundation (SES-0433358 and SES-0001362) and, for Williamson, the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. JEL classification: D3, N3, O1