Coimbra/Portugal, 9-12 September 2025.
Recent years have seen a flourishing of studies which have added considerably to our knowledge of inequality dynamics in preindustrial times. Scholars focused also on the determinants of these dynamics and some of these suggests a direct connection between the growth of economic inequality and the functioning of the public finances (i.e. Alfani and Di Tulio in their book on the Republic of Venice). Basically, the argument is that regressive taxation would have fostered this phenomenon, but we still have little knowledge about the mechanisms beyond this process. Why did this happen? How did the public economy’s choices influence these dynamics? How did the management of the common pool resources and the level of municipal and state direct taxation affect the paths of wealth distribution? Which were the correlations and causations mechanisms between the different elements?
We look for contributions for a session to be submitted for the European Rural History Organisation Conference that will be held in Coimbra (9-12 September 2025).
Argument
Recent years have seen a flourishing of studies which have added considerably to our knowledge of inequality dynamics in preindustrial times. Scholars focused also on the determinants of these dynamics and some of these suggests a direct connection between the growth of economic inequality and the functioning of the public finances (i.e. Alfani and Di Tulio in their book on the Republic of Venice). Basically, the argument is that regressive taxation would have fostered this phenomenon, but we still have little knowledge about the mechanisms beyond this process. Why did this happen? How did the public economy’s choices influence these dynamics? How did the management of the common pool resources and the level of municipal and state direct taxation affect the paths of wealth distribution? Which were the correlations and causations mechanisms between the different elements?
Clearly, a depletion or a private use of the common pool resources, thanks to its narrowed management, could have produced important effects in terms of increase of direct taxation and, therefore, of increase of economic inequality. However, the availability of the commons could have affected economic inequality not only impacting on the level of taxation, but also on the capacity of the taxpayers to face the State and municipal fiscal needs. Starting from these assumptions, the panel will focus on the complexity of the relationship between the management of the commons and the trend of economic inequality, dealing (but not exclusively) with the following topics in the long run (1500-1800):
- How did the depletion of the incomes from the commons could have caused the increase of direct taxation at the local level?
- Did a certain management of the common could have affected economic inequality in other ways – such as lowering the incomes (i.e., the fiscal capacity) for a part of the population and/or increasing them for another? In other words, how did the presence, or the absence, or a different way to manage these resources affected the capability of the rural population (or of a part of it) to meet the fiscal needs of the State?
- Did the direct use of the common pool resources or the renting out of them have different effects in terms of the redistribution of the wealth they produced among the rural population?
- More, did the presence of specific resources (public woods, buildings for the lodging of soldiers, and so on) produce, at the roots, the absence of the need to purchase/rent them and, therefore, to impose a tax to pay the purchase/rent?
- Was there an awareness of local/State institution of the connection between the presence (or a certain management) of the commons and the functioning of the fiscal system?
Organizers
- Giulio Ongaro – University of Milano-Bicocca
- Matteo Di Tullio – University of Pavia
- Benedetta Crivelli – University of Parma
Submission guidelines
If you wish to propose a contribution to the session, please send an email with a provisional title and a short abstract to the session organizers :