Comparing income and wealth inequality in pre-industrial economies: the case of Castile (Spain) in the eighteenth century

Abstract

Most research on inequality in pre-industrial economies has focused on either wealth or income, generating not readily comparable results. In this paper, we use a unique data set of Spain circa 1750 including information on (among other things) wealth and income for the same sample of households. Our findings provide methodological insights showing that a household’s position in the income distribution is strongly correlated with its position in the wealth distribution but is also influenced by several other household specific characteristics like human capital of the head of the household and the economic sector of her/his main occupation.