Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Was the Black Death a Watershed? Measuring European Regional Inequality in the Very Long Run

本研究探讨了现代经济增长和地区不平等的根源，这些根源可以追溯到工业革命及其之前的时期。研究者特别关注了工业革命前欧洲各国人均收入的差异。经济历史学家最近对这种差异提出了几种相互竞争的解释，但其中许多解释都植根于黑死病（1347-1350）前后或之后发生的事件。因此，本研究构建了从1300年开始的经济活动的新指标，以探索促进西北欧持续经济增长但阻碍其他地区经济增长的因素。研究者利用一个独特的数据来源——天主教会的收入——来研究不同地区对黑死病的反应。鉴于现有数据的局限性，目前尚不清楚黑死病期间的大规模人口损失是否以及通过何种渠道与1500年后欧洲经济的不同增长路径联系起来。由此产生的数据库将阐明经济增长中一些长期存在的问题，并提高我们对前现代社会的理解。近年来，经济历史学家对工业革命前欧洲和亚洲之间以及欧洲内部的人均收入差异提出了几种相互竞争的解释。这些解释中的许多都植根于黑死病发生前后或之后发生的事件。然而，除了少数几个国家之外，现有的中世纪晚期收入数据是支离破碎的，不适合检验这些假设。这项研究使用了天主教会的收入数据，这些数据是作为神职人员的税收收集的，以更直接的方式衡量欧洲地区不平等的动态。天主教会是一个独特的凝聚力和能力的机构，它使用先进的簿记方法，定期更新其人员登记，并将大量财富转移到整个欧洲。除了地理范围外，这种拼装的面板式数据库还具有以下优点：(i)在黑死病发生之前、期间和之后，教会每年都有收入；（ii）以教区为主要空间单位，使研究人员能够研究国家以下收入水平的差异；（iii）在某一特定时间点，大多数交易以同一种货币进行。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research investigates the roots of modern economic growth and regional inequality which can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution and the preceding period. In particular, the investigator focuses on the divergence in incomes per capita within Europe before the Industrial Revolution. Economic historians have recently suggested several competing explanations for this divergence, but many of these explanations are rooted in the events that took place around the time or in the aftermath of the Black Death (1347-1350). Therefore, this research constructs new measures of economic activity starting from 1300 in order to explore the factors that contributed to sustained economic growth in Northwestern Europe but hindered it elsewhere. The investigator utilizes a unique data source -- revenues of the Catholic Church -- to study how various regions responded to the Black Death. Given the limitations of the existing data, it remains unclear whether, and via which channels, the massive population losses during the Black Death can be linked to the divergent growth paths of European economies after 1500. The resulting database will illuminate some of the long-standing questions in economic growth and also improve our understanding of pre-modern society.In the recent years, economic historians have suggested several competing explanations for the divergence in the incomes per capita between Europe and Asia, as well as within Europe, before the Industrial Revolution. Many of these explanations are rooted in the events that took place around the time or in the aftermath of the Black Death. With the exception of a handful of countries, however, the existing data on incomes in the late Middle Ages is fragmented and ill-suited for testing these hypotheses. This research uses data on revenues of the Catholic Church, which were collected as the taxes on clergy, to measure the dynamics of regional inequality in Europe in a more direct fashion. The Catholic Church was a uniquely cohesive and capable institution that used advanced bookkeeping methods, routinely updated registries of its personnel, and transferred vast amounts of wealth all over Europe. Besides its geographic scope, the assembled panel-like database has the following advantages: (i) Church revenues are available at annual intervals right before, during the course of, and immediately after the Black Death; (ii) the primary spatial unit is diocese, which allows the researcher to study subnational variation in income levels; (iii) at a given point in time, most transactions were made in the same currency.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.