EH.Net Abstracts in Economic History

               ABSTRACTS IN ECONOMIC HISTORY
                     (c) 2002 EH.Net
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Name: Graziella Bertocchi
Email: bertocchi at unimo.it
Institution: Universita' di Modena e Reggio Emilia

Co-author: none

Title: The Law of Primogeniture and the Transition from Landed 
Aristocracy to Industrial Democracy

Internet Address of abstracted work:
http://www.economia.unimore.it/Bertocchi_Graziella/papers/primoweb.pdf

By mail:
Universita' di Modena e Reggio Emilia
Dipartimento di Economia Politica
Viale Berengario 51
I-41100 Modena
Italy

Language: English

Abstract:
This paper looks at the historical evolution of the relationship 
between an economy's structure and the corresponding political 
system, with a focus on the European experience starting from feudal 
times. We show why, in an early agricultural phase, aristocratic 
political systems prevail, while democracies tend to emerge with 
industrialization, while at the same time the law of inheritance 
evolves from primogeniture to equal partition as the primary source 
of wealth shifts from land to capital. The model also replicates the 
historical stylized facts of output growth and its sectoral 
composition, income and wealth distribution, and class structure.

Bibliography: Bertocchi, Graziella. "The Law of Primogeniture and the 
Transition from Landed Aristocracy to Industrial Democracy." 
Universita' di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Working Paper 2002.

Subject: W
Geographical Area: 4
Country/Region: 0
Time Period: 0

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