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

这项研究考察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。这位研究者特别关注工业革命前欧洲内部人均收入的差异。经济历史学家最近对这种差异提出了几种相互矛盾的解释，但其中许多解释植根于黑死病(Black Death，1347-1350)前后或之后发生的事件。因此，本研究构建了从1300年开始的新的经济活动衡量标准，以探索促进西北欧经济持续增长但阻碍其他地区经济增长的因素。调查人员利用一个独特的数据来源--天主教会的收入--来研究各个地区如何应对黑死病。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哪些渠道与1500年后欧洲经济体不同的增长路径有关。由此产生的数据库将阐明经济增长中的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，经济史学家对工业革命前欧洲与亚洲以及欧洲内部的人均收入差异提出了几种相互矛盾的解释。其中许多解释都植根于发生在黑死病前后或之后的事件。然而，除了少数几个国家外，现有的中世纪晚期收入数据是零散的，不适合检验这些假设。这项研究使用天主教会的收入数据，这些数据是作为神职人员的税收征收的，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具有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，并在整个欧洲转移了大量财富。除了其地理范围外，组装的小组状数据库还具有以下优势：(I)教会收入在黑死病之前、期间和之后每年都有；(Ii)主要空间单位是教区，这允许研究人员研究国家以下地区收入水平的变化；(Iii)在给定的时间点，大多数交易是以同一货币进行的。这一裁决反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.