Women have long been at the edge of economic history. According to Humphries (1991) and Sharpe (1995), shifting them from there ''to the heart'' goes into stages. The first stage involves recognising the extent to which the role of women has been neglected. The second stage aims to integrate...

Detailed distributional estimates at finer geographical levels remain scarce, despite their critical relevance for household well being and policy intervention. This paper leverages Italian income tax records dating back to 1976 focusing on top income concentration and inequality across the...

We argue against the use of composite indices, such as the Human Development Index (HDI), in economic history. We show that the HDI can be interpreted as a formal representation of the analyst's ethical system. We support our claim by introducing a new class of paternalistic social welfare...