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Inheritance Institutions and Landholding Inequality in Nineteenth-Century Germany: Evidence from Hesse-Cassel Villages and Towns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2021

Simone A. Wegge Open the ORCID record for Simone A. Wegge [Opens in a new window]
Simone A. Wegge*
Affiliation:
Professor, College of Staten Island – CUNY, Department of Economics, Lucille and Jay Chazanoff School of Business, 2800 Victory Blvd., Staten Island, NY 10314 and Member of the Faculty, The Graduate Center – CUNY. E-mail: Simone.Wegge@csi.cuny.edu.
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Abstract

This paper considers the German principality of Hesse-Cassel in the 1850s, comparing inheritance institutions and landholding inequality for roughly a thousand mostly agricultural villages and towns. The principality lay between impartible northern Europe and the partible southwest. Inequality in landholding size is measured, showing an average Gini of 0.615 and substantial variation across communities. Places with relatively larger populations and ones that practiced impartible inheritance had mostly higher wealth inequality. The main result is that inheritance norms played a role in causing higher landholding inequality. Higher emigration rates in the impartible communities helped to alleviate landholding inequality.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 81 , Issue 3 , September 2021 , pp. 909 - 942
Copyright
© The Economic History Association 2021

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Footnotes

I am indebted to thoughtful guidance from JEH editor Dan Bogart and former editor William Collins, both of whom made this a much better paper. Similar thanks go to former editor Ann Carlos and two anonymous referees. I also extend my deep gratitude to my colleague Kristin Mammen who made substantive editorial suggestions that also improved this paper. Participants in the economics workshop at SUNY-Binghamton in October 2020 contributed very helpful suggestions in the final stages. Discussions with Guido Alfani over time inspired me to persist with this work. Thanks also go to Nora Santiago for creating the GIS maps and to Leon L. Wegge for assisting with translations of works by Joseph Goy. I also thank Alex Klein, Joel Mokyr, Anne Pfaelzer de Ortiz, and my CUNY colleagues Hyoung Suk Shim, George Vachadze, Wim Vijverberg, and Bryan Weber for suggestions on the paper at various stages. Participants of the 2015 Economic History Association (EHA) meetings made helpful comments on an earlier draft. The presentation of this research at the 2015 EHA conference was supported by a travel grant from the Faculty Center for Professional Development at the College of Staten Island.

References

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