Bram Hilkens

Excellent work by Marcus, super interesting for historians working on wealth, consumption, and living standards!

Many thanks to @timriswick.bsky.social for great editorial work!

It contains six diverse contributions, on topics varying from urban-rural flight during plague outbreaks in 18thC Transylvania to effects on purchasing power in 14thC Flanders to urban recovery in the aftermath of cholera epidemics in 19thC Prussia. Check it out if you're interested!

The History of the Family Household Family and the Community Response to the Direct Costs of Epidemics. Volume 30, Issue 3 of The History of the Family

Our special issue of the History of the Family is out!

Recent literature has stressed the various long-term impacts (or lack thereof) of epidemics in history. While new work on this is still welcome, we suggest that the direct costs associated with epidemics deserve additional scholarly attention.

Can’t wait to see you and Jakob rocking one of those covers

Super interesting paper by @oana-sorsk-id.bsky.social on urban-rural flight, population turnover, and wealth-holding after two eighteenth-century plague outbreaks in Transylvania!

Part of our special issue on the direct costs of epidemic mortality, which should be out very soon.

Very much looking forward!

Thanks Jaco!

This paper is part of a special issue, edited by Daniel Curtis, Bram van Besouw, and myself. More interesting stuff coming up soon, stay tuned! (12/12)

In short, the 1655-6 plague epidemic in Hazerswoude was unable to redistribute property more equally; but it was also unable to do so more unequally. Inheritance and (re-)marriage played a major role in balancing the distribution, even if the market did respond to the increased land supply. (11/12)

Marginal returns to land per soil type. Most soil types saw declining marginal returns which stabilized at larger plot sizes, while returns to grassland ('weiland') declined less steeply and actually increased at larger sizes.

Therefore, marginal returns likely played a role in the decision to take to the market. It was not always lucrative to expand a small peat farm, but it was almost always beneficial to expand a large cattle farm. These differences are not straightforwardly captured by inequality figures. (10/12)

Land price index with 95% confidence intervals in Hazerswoude between 1651-1660. Base land prices declined by over 50 percent in a timespan of ten years.

There was no discernible lasting effect on land prices. Prices had already declined by over 20 percent before the epidemic struck, and this trend continued in the succeeding years. Cheap land could have drawn households to the market, but it also made land less valuable. (9/12)

The market was not left untouched, though. Average annual market turnover increased from 2.0 to 2.4 percent due to increased activity of small to middling owners. It is argued that by bestowing land on previously propertyless households, the epidemic increased both land supply and demand. (8/12)

Of total post-epidemic turnover, almost three quarters was achieved outside of the market, compared to half of total turnover in the preceding years. Distributional changes were thus mostly informed by non-market institutions, like (re-)marriage and inheritance, more than the market. (7/12)

Instead, the distribution 'balanced' itself by boosting the holdings of middling owners, which on average more than doubled after the epidemic. Not all of this was due to accumulation of established owners; over 70 percent of total turnover post-epidemic was due to entry of new owners. (6/12)

The number of landowners increased by 13.9 percent, the largest increases of which can be seen at the bottom. Simultaneously, the number of large landowners increased. With these changes, the distribution should have become more unequal on aggregate, but it did not. (5/12)

I find that in a comparable case, the 1655-6 plague epidemic in Hazerswoude (a peat village in Holland), aggregate land distribution as measured by the Gini coefficient indeed remained stable around 0.55. The distribution, however, did change considerably. (4/12)

It has been argued that elites learned from the BD. They skewed institutions to prevent property from leaving the family and entering the market. This phenomenon, however, is relatively sparsely understood, as it heavily relies on a single case study in Italy (Alfani 2010). (3/12)

The literature suggests that the Black Death (1347-52) narrowed economic disparities by destroying human lives while leaving capital intact, lowering the cost of capital while increasing wages. The plague waves of the seventeenth century, however, were seemingly unable to do so. (2/12)

Mortality, morcellation, and the market: the impact of epidemic disease mortality on land distribution in a seventeenth-century-Holland village The current article aims to explain the distributional consequences of epidemic mortality by assessing the relationship between post-epidemic land redistribution and land market exchange for one vi...

Happy to share that my article on the redistributive effects of epidemic mortality is now published in The History of the Family!

It adds to the literature on preindustrial inequality by investigating redistribution of land in the wake of the 1655-6 plague epidemic in Hazerswoude, Holland. (1/12)

Oorlog en ongelijkheid De glorie kent vele schaduwzijden Alle oorlogen in de zestiende en zeventiende eeuw leidden tot economische neergang, behalve de Tachtigjarige Oorlog. Deze leidde juist tot een periode van enorme bloe...

Wie ons niet op ons woord durft te geloven, kan het boek altijd zelf bestellen via Boom uitgevers.

Lees het hele discussiedossier hier. Met bijdragen van Maarten Prak, Alberto Feenstra, Erik Odegard, Marion Pluskota en een reactie van de auteur zelf.

Vond Hollands 'Gouden Eeuw' plaats ondanks, of dankzij de Tachtigjarige Oorlog? Wie profiteerde daarvan? Wat voor gevolgen heeft dat voor ons begrip van economische ongelijkheid in het verleden? Zie mijn discussiestuk over Marjolein 't Harts Oorlog en ongelijkheid in @tseglowcountries.bsky.social.

Congrats Marcus, very happy for you!

Congrats, Marcus!

Stef’s is the first paper out for our upcoming special issue on the short-term economic effects of epidemics—stay tuned!

Great to see this paper published!

Balen Koen, moedig voorwaarts!

Ultimately, they find no tendency towards accumulation or greater disparities in landholding, as was found for other European regions in the early modern period. Instead, changing landholding requirements across the life cycle prevented aggregate land concentration.

They find that in the decidedly non-commercialized village of Oudenbosch, land distribution was remarkably stable in the face of a very high turnover, arguing that actors utilized the land market for optimizing returns to scale. This included selling land in the face of labour shortage.