Anna Missiaia

The Industrial Labor Force of Italy's Provinces: Estimates from the Population Censuses, 1871-1911

This paper presents statistical reconstructions of the industrial laborforce in post-Unification Italy. The estimates are based on the populationcensuses taken in 1871, 1881, 1901, and 1911. The figures are presentedfor each of Italys 69 provinces, separately by gender. Industry, as is customaryin the literature, is defined so to include four major components:mining, manufacturing, construction, and utilities. Manufacturing is inturn broken down into 12 sectors. Some of the limits of population censuses,including their questionable representation of the labor force in thetextile sector, are briefly summarized. The paper focuses then on possibleuses of the proposed labor force estimates. It is in particular shown that,despite their known limits, population censuses represent a useful historicalsource to obtain legitimate estimates of provincial value added for Italysindustry. The present contribution, that aims at stimulating the quantitativedebate on Italian industry and industrialization at the local level,ends by presenting tentative directions for future research.

Wealth inequality in Sweden 1750–1900

This article examines the evolution of wealth inequality in Sweden from 1750 to 1900, contributing both to the debate on early modern and modern inequality and to the general debate on the pattern of inequality during industrialization. The pre‐industrial period (1750–1850) is for the first time examined for Sweden at the national level. The study uses a random sample of probate inventories from urban and rural areas across the country, adjusted for age and social class. Estimates are provided for the years 1750, 1800, 1850, and 1900. The results show a gradual growth in inequality as early as the mid‐eighteenth century, with the sharpest rise in the late nineteenth century. Whereas the early growth in inequality was connected to changes in the countryside and in agriculture, the later growth was related to industrialization encompassing both compositional effects and strong wealth accumulation among the richest. The level of inequality in Sweden in 1750 was lower than for other western European countries, but by 1900 Sweden was just as unequal.

Business Fluctuations in Imperial Austria's Regions, 1867-1913: New Evidence

This paper presents annual estimates of total and per-capita GDP at 1910 prices for the regions of Imperial Austria from the origin of the Dual Monarchy (1867) to the eve of WWI (1913). The time paths of regional GDP are estimated from the yield of the tax on the transfer of real and financial property which is itself very highly correlated with the Schulze (2007) estimates of regional GDP for census years (1870, 1880, 1890, 1900, and 1910). The relative continuity or discontinuity of per-capita GDP growth partitions Austrias regions into two groups. Clear evidence of discontinuity (a “take-off”) is present in Carniola, Carinthia, Salzburg, Styria, Littoral, Tyrol, and to some extent Moravia. In Lower and Upper Austria, Bohemia, Silesia, Galicia, Bukovina, and Dalmatia there is instead no evidence of structural break in their growth rates. Significant drops in the level of pc GDP do occur (as in Lower Austria and Bohemia after the 1873 financial crash) but have moderate effects on the growth of subsequent years. Regional (per-capita) inequality is also evaluated using standard measures. The coefficient of variation and Theil index follow a U-shape curve: after a decline lasted about 15 years they both rise and point to, from ca. 1885, growing divergence.

ARISTOCRATIC WEALTH AND INEQUALITY IN A CHANGING SOCIETY: SWEDEN, 1750–1900

The role of the European nobility and their ability to retain their political and economic power are part of the debate on the modernization of Europe’s economy. This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the wealth of the Swedish nobility as the country evolved from an agrarian to an industrial economy. We use a sample of 200+ probate inventories of nobles for each of the benchmark years 1750, 1800, 1850 and 1900. We show that the nobility, less than 0.5 per cent of the population, was markedly dominant in 1750: the average noble was 60 times richer than the average person, and the nobles held 29 per cent of all private wealth. 90 per cent of the nobles were richer than the average person. By 1900 the advantage of the nobles’ wealth had declined; the group held only 5 per cent of total private wealth. At the same time, stratification within the nobility had increased dramatically. One group of super-rich Swedish nobles, often large land owners from the high nobility, possessed the biggest fortunes, but a large minority of nobles were no richer than the average Swede.

Regional GDP estimates for Sweden, 1571-1850

ABSTRACT This paper provides regional GDP estimates for the 24 Swedish regions (NUTS-3) for the benchmark year 1571 and for 11 ten-year benchmarks for the period 1750–1850. The 1571 estimates are based on tax sources and agricultural statistics. The 1750–1850 estimates are produced following the widely used methodology by Geary and Stark (2002): labour force figures from population censuses at regional level are used to allocate to regions the national estimates of agriculture, industry and services while wages are used to correct for productivity differentials. By connecting our series to the existing ones by Enflo, Henning, and Schön (2014) for the period 1860–2010, we are able to produce the longest set of regional GDP series to date for any single country.