Redistributing incomes has always been one of the main goals of Iranian policy makers, although political regimes have changed frequently between 1991 and 2004. We have applied a microsimulation using the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition and a Heckman correction for sample selection bias to compare...

This article studies temporal variations in wealth levels and distribution in an Ottoman context during the eighteenth century. By analysing the probate estate inventories of the Muslim deceased in Kastamonu, located in north-central Anatolia, we demonstrate that real wealth levels generally...

Court records are used extensively in historical research. Preserved as summaries of daily legal proceedings, they give historians a unique opportunity of access to the information about the names, personal characteristics, and socio-economic status of individuals and about the laws, local...

Prices differ across space: from province to province, from rural (or urban) areas in one province to rural (or urban) areas in another province, and from rural to urban areas within one province. Systematic differences in prices across a range of goods and services in different localities imply...

Prices differ across space: from province to province, from rural (or urban) areas in one province to rural (or urban) areas in another province, and from rural to urban areas within one province. Systematic differences in prices across a range of goods and services in different localities imply...

This article studies the accumulation and intergenerational transmission of wealth in early-modern Ottoman Anatolia by employing data from probate estate inventories (terekes) as found in the court records (sicils) of eighteenth-century Kastamonu, a town located in northern Anatolia. Extracting...

This paper discusses the data limitations associated with the measurement of top incomes and inequality in the Middle East, with special emphasis to the case of Egypt. It has been noted that high inequality might have contributed to the Arab spring revolt movement. Some studies have argued...

This article considers the relevance of hypotheses developed in the "law and economics" literature regarding settlement/trial decisions in the Ottoman Empire. In particular, it explores the applicability of the "selection principle" and "50 percent plaintiff win-rate" formulated by George Priest...

This short essay examines the proposition that the transition process to a capitalist economic system in Eastern and Central European nations has introduced greater income inequality than in long-time capitalist nations at similar stages of development. In the empirical analysis I use comparable...

Following a methodology proposed by Jantzen and Volpert (2012), we use IRS Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) data for the United States (1921-2012) to estimate two Gini-like indices representing inequality at the bottom and the top of the income distribution. We also calculate the overall Gini index...