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[email protected] Sergio Sardone Dondena Centre – Bocconi University Via Roentgen 1, 20136 Milan, Italy
[email protected] Long-term trends in economic inequality in southern Italy. The Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, 16 th -18 th centuries: First results 1 Abstract This paper uses new archival data collected by an ERC-funded research project, EINITE-Economic Inequality across Italy and Europe, 1300-1800 , to study the long-term tendencies in economic inequality in preindustrial southern Italy (Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily). The paper reconstructs long-term trends in inequality, especially of wealth, for the period 1550-1800 and also produces regional estimates of overall inequality levels in Apulia, which are compared with those now available for some regions of central-northern Italy (Piedmont, Tuscany). As much of the early modern period the Kingdom of Naples was overall a stagnating economy, this is a particularly good case for exploring the relationship between economic growth and inequality change. Keywords Economic inequality; income inequality; wealth inequality; early modern period; Kingdom of Naples; Apulia; Sicily; Italy; poverty Acknowledgements We are grateful to Alessia Lo Storto, who helped collect data from the mid-18 th century catasto onciario , and to Davide De Franco, who elaborated the GIS maps we use. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant agreement n° 283802, starting date 1 January 2012.