Italy and the Little Divergence in Wages and Prices: New Data, New Results

2020/09/24 by Mauro Rota, Jacob Weisdorf · 4 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Historical Economic and Social Studies #Culture, Economy, and Development Studies #Historical Economic and Legal Thought

paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0022050720000467

openalex created_date 2020/06/05 · openalex publication_date 2020/09/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

We present new wage indices for skilled and unskilled construction workers in Italy. Our data avoid multiple issues pestering earlier wages, making our new indices the first consistent ones for early-modern Italy. Our improved wages, obtained from the St. Peter’s Church in Rome, consolidate the view that urban Italy began a prolonged downturn during the seventeenth century. They also offer sustenance to the idea that epidemics instigated the decline. Comparison with new construction wages for London shows that Roman workers outearned their early-modern English counterparts. This suggests that high wages alone were not enough to trigger industrialization.

Citations

• The lure of aggregates and the pitfalls of the patriarchal perspective: a critique of the high wage economy interpretation of the British industrial revolution
• The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War

Cited by

• Economic history of Italy [wikipedia]
• Economy of Italy [wikipedia]
• History of Italy [wikipedia]
• History of early modern Italy [wikipedia]

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