The persistence of wealth Economic inequality in a Caribbean slave colony in the very long run
Abstract
It has been proposed that slave societies were the most unequal societies in recorded human history. What little evidence there is shows an ambiguous picture. We contribute with a study on the wealth distribution in a Caribbean society, based on individual-level data for the full population, combining tax and census records into the largest comparable historical dataset from the Global South. Our results show a distribution of wealth shockingly close to perfect inequality. Our results also show a remarkable degree of persistence: even after slavery was abolished, the freedmen never managed to accumulate physical wealth to any measurable degree.
Date
2024-02Author
Rönnbäck, Klas
Galli, Stefania
Theodoridis, Dimitrios
Faust Larsen, Kathrine
Keywords
Inequality
wealth
slavery
Caribbean
mancipation
long-term
Publication type
report
ISSN
1653-1000 online version
1653-1019 print version
Series/Report no.
Göteborg Papers in Economic History 35
Language
eng