IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/emx/ceedoc/2020-04.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Life on the Edge: elites, wealth, and inequality in Sonora 1871-1910

Author

Listed:
  • Diego Castañeda Garza

    (ITESM-CSF)

  • Alice Krozer

    (El Colegio de México)

Abstract

This paper’s contribution is a reconstruction of the distribution of wealth employing a sample of wills from El Colegio de Sonora database for the years 1871-1910. We show that the rapid industrialisation/modernisation process that ensued in northern Mexico during the late 19th and early 20th century lead to a continuous increment in wealth concentration at the top of the distribution, going from a Gini index measure of 0.48 in 1871 to 0.79 in 1910. Rather than a fundamental (kuznetsian) necessity, however, our data suggests a critical role played by the political economy at the time in a gerschenkronian fashion and highlight the importance of the control of natural resources on inequality dynamics. The paper hereby engages with and contributes to the ongoing discussion about the role of economic and political elites in inequality dynamics and their reproduction over time.

Suggested Citation

  • Diego Castañeda Garza & Alice Krozer, 2020. "Life on the Edge: elites, wealth, and inequality in Sonora 1871-1910," Serie documentos de trabajo del Centro de Estudios Económicos 2020-04, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos.
    • Handle: RePEc:emx:ceedoc:2020-04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cee.colmex.mx/dts/2020/DT-2020-4.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alvaredo, Facundo & Atkinson, Anthony B. & Morelli, Salvatore, 2018. "Top wealth shares in the UK over more than a century," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 26-47.
    2. Branko Milanovic & Peter H. Lindert & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2011. "Pre‐Industrial Inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(551), pages 255-272, March.
    3. Peter H. Lindert & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2016. "Unequal Gains: American Growth and Inequality since 1700," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10670.
    4. Peter H. Lindert & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 1983. "English Workers’Living Standards During the Industrial Revolution: A New Look," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 36(1), pages 1-25, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laura Panza & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2021. "Always egalitarian? Australian earnings inequality 1870–1910," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(2), pages 228-246, July.
    2. Hauner, Thomas & Milanovic, Branko & Naidu, Suresh, 2017. "Inequality, Foreign Investment, and Imperialism," MPRA Paper 83068, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Vincent Geloso & Peter Lindert, 2020. "Relative costs of living, for richer and poorer, 1688–1914," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(3), pages 417-442, September.
    4. James B. Davies & Livio Di Matteo, 2021. "Long Run Canadian Wealth Inequality in International Context," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 67(1), pages 134-164, March.
    5. Cummins, Neil, 2021. "Where Is the Middle Class? Evidence from 60 Million English Death and Probate Records, 1892–1992," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(2), pages 359-404, June.
    6. Peter H. Lindert & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2017. "Inequality in the very long run: Malthus, Kuznets, and Ohlin," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 11(3), pages 289-295, September.
    7. Haines, Michael R., 2019. "Inequality among industrial workers in the late 19th century United States," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 125-137.
    8. Milanovic, Branko, 2022. "The three eras of global inequality, 1820-2020 with the focus on the past thirty years," SocArXiv yg2h9, Center for Open Science.
    9. Irarrázaval, Andrés, 2020. "The fiscal origins of comparative inequality levels: an empirical and historical investigation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107491, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Robert C. Allen, 2019. "Class structure and inequality during the industrial revolution: lessons from England's social tables, 1688–1867," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 72(1), pages 88-125, February.
    11. Seltzer, Andrew J., 2021. "Globalisation, migration, trade and growth: honouring the contribution of Jeff Williamson to Australian and Asia-Pacific economic history—Guest Editor's introduction," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111038, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Andres Irarrazaval, 2022. "The Fiscal Origins of Comparative Inequality levels: An Empirical and Historical Investigation," Working Papers wp531, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    13. Erik Bengtsson & Mats Olsson & Patrick Svensson, 2022. "Mercantilist inequality: wealth and poverty in Stockholm, 1650–1750†," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(1), pages 157-180, February.
    14. Irarrázaval, Andrés, 2020. "The fiscal origins of comparative inequality levels: an empirical and historical investigation," Economic History Working Papers 107491, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    15. Burnard, Trevor & Panza, Laura & Williamson, Jeffrey, 2019. "Living costs, real incomes and inequality in colonial Jamaica," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 55-71.
    16. Branko Milanovic, 2018. "Towards an explanation of inequality in premodern societies: the role of colonies, urbanization, and high population density," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(4), pages 1029-1047, November.
    17. Pim Zwart, 2022. "Inequality in late colonial Indonesia: new evidence on regional differences," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 16(1), pages 175-211, January.
    18. Andrew J. Seltzer, 2021. "Globalisation, migration, trade and growth: Honouring the contribution of Jeff Williamson to Australian and Asia‐Pacific economic history—Guest Editor's introduction," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(2), pages 128-135, July.
    19. Marcin Wroński, 2023. "Income distribution in Warsaw in the 1830s," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 27(4), pages 581-605.
    20. Joshua Aizenman & Yothin Jinjarak, 2012. "Income Inequality, Tax Base and Sovereign Spreads," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 68(4), pages 431-444, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    inequality; wealth inequality; elites; Mexico; wills; Sonora; social structure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • N36 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:emx:ceedoc:2020-04. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ximena Varela (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cecolmx.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.