"Gatsby in the country of The Leopard.
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: History Faculty
Abstract
Introduction
Social mobility is an increasingly important issue in modern market societies, embodying the liberal principle of 'equality of opportunity'. Beliefs about mobility shape policy preferences: people support redistribution if they think unearned privileges explain economic success (Bowles and Gintis 2002, 3). Recently, evidence has emerged pointing towards a correlation between income inequality and lower intergenerational income elasticity, a finding summarized by the 'Great Gatsby curve'.
A New Source: The Lists of Taxpayers
Was mobility persistently low in unified Italy? Has a 'Gatsby curve' characterised the Italian Southern Question? Another fiscal source will provide an answer to these questions. In 1872, the Ministry of Finance first published a 'list of top-earning taxpayers' for the main income tax. As a tax evasion deterrent, it listed all taxpayers declaring more than 1,000 liras in 1871, detailing their name, activity, location, and income. Lists were published again for 1874, 1889, 1922, 1929-30, 1933-34, 1955, 1959, 1962 and 1977. After a few years, these lists were left to gather dusty in public libraries, without noticeable use by academics.
The Research Strategy
I. Moving to Fascism: 1872-1934
Modern technologies allow rapid digitalisation of printed sources such as the ones discussed in previous section. Nonetheless, the amount of data necessitates a gradual approach. I will first digitalise data for 1871-1934 and link individual observations by means of surnames. As is the case with most fiscal data, the source does not cover the entire population. I will thus focus on top earners, following the example of Björklund et al. (2012). I will also exploit details on 'industries, trades and professions' to apply Erikson and Golthorpes' Class Schema and obtain sociological measures of mobility. Finally, I will use the 1872 list as an 'élite sample' and combine it with samples as MPs and the 28 Italian professional orders, following Clark and Cummins' approach. This will provide the primary base for an understanding of long-run Italian social mobility, ideally complementing Ferrie (2005) and Long (2013) in tracing the origins of Fig.1 outliers. Moreover, it will potentially offer the first extensive comparison of alternative measures of mobility.
II. A Case Study on Overall Social Mobility: Florence, 1427-2013
Focussing on a single province will allow me to digitise and link data from 1872 to 1977, and to compare them with traditional historical sources, such as local vital registers. Well preserved archives, a distinguished tradition of local statistics, and Barone and Mocetti's (2016) results make a strong case for Florence. Examining Tuscany also allows me to exploit another extraordinary source: the Archivio Diaristico Nazionale (ADN). In the past decades, the ADN has collected roughly 7,000 diaries, memoirs, family books and other autobiographical materials written by Italians of all classes. Humphries (2010) exposed the potential offered by the rich life-long information contained in autobiography. In this project, I will apply an analogous approach to overcome intrinsic limits of traditional sources on mobility, most notably the limited coverage of lower classes and missing information on individual factors beyond occupation and location.
III. From Miracle to Decline: 1955-2013
Finally, the project will be concluded by a chapter on post-WWII Italy, aimed at linking historical sources with modern digital fiscal declarations such as the one used by Barone and Mocetti (2016). Drawing on more complete income tax records as well as findings from sociological and historical research, this section will ideally draw together and extend findings contained in parts I and II.
Social mobility is an increasingly important issue in modern market societies, embodying the liberal principle of 'equality of opportunity'. Beliefs about mobility shape policy preferences: people support redistribution if they think unearned privileges explain economic success (Bowles and Gintis 2002, 3). Recently, evidence has emerged pointing towards a correlation between income inequality and lower intergenerational income elasticity, a finding summarized by the 'Great Gatsby curve'.
A New Source: The Lists of Taxpayers
Was mobility persistently low in unified Italy? Has a 'Gatsby curve' characterised the Italian Southern Question? Another fiscal source will provide an answer to these questions. In 1872, the Ministry of Finance first published a 'list of top-earning taxpayers' for the main income tax. As a tax evasion deterrent, it listed all taxpayers declaring more than 1,000 liras in 1871, detailing their name, activity, location, and income. Lists were published again for 1874, 1889, 1922, 1929-30, 1933-34, 1955, 1959, 1962 and 1977. After a few years, these lists were left to gather dusty in public libraries, without noticeable use by academics.
The Research Strategy
I. Moving to Fascism: 1872-1934
Modern technologies allow rapid digitalisation of printed sources such as the ones discussed in previous section. Nonetheless, the amount of data necessitates a gradual approach. I will first digitalise data for 1871-1934 and link individual observations by means of surnames. As is the case with most fiscal data, the source does not cover the entire population. I will thus focus on top earners, following the example of Björklund et al. (2012). I will also exploit details on 'industries, trades and professions' to apply Erikson and Golthorpes' Class Schema and obtain sociological measures of mobility. Finally, I will use the 1872 list as an 'élite sample' and combine it with samples as MPs and the 28 Italian professional orders, following Clark and Cummins' approach. This will provide the primary base for an understanding of long-run Italian social mobility, ideally complementing Ferrie (2005) and Long (2013) in tracing the origins of Fig.1 outliers. Moreover, it will potentially offer the first extensive comparison of alternative measures of mobility.
II. A Case Study on Overall Social Mobility: Florence, 1427-2013
Focussing on a single province will allow me to digitise and link data from 1872 to 1977, and to compare them with traditional historical sources, such as local vital registers. Well preserved archives, a distinguished tradition of local statistics, and Barone and Mocetti's (2016) results make a strong case for Florence. Examining Tuscany also allows me to exploit another extraordinary source: the Archivio Diaristico Nazionale (ADN). In the past decades, the ADN has collected roughly 7,000 diaries, memoirs, family books and other autobiographical materials written by Italians of all classes. Humphries (2010) exposed the potential offered by the rich life-long information contained in autobiography. In this project, I will apply an analogous approach to overcome intrinsic limits of traditional sources on mobility, most notably the limited coverage of lower classes and missing information on individual factors beyond occupation and location.
III. From Miracle to Decline: 1955-2013
Finally, the project will be concluded by a chapter on post-WWII Italy, aimed at linking historical sources with modern digital fiscal declarations such as the one used by Barone and Mocetti (2016). Drawing on more complete income tax records as well as findings from sociological and historical research, this section will ideally draw together and extend findings contained in parts I and II.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Giacomo Gabbuti (Student) |
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES/P000649/1 | 30/09/2017 | 29/09/2028 | |||
| 1923825 | Studentship | ES/P000649/1 | 30/09/2017 | 31/12/2020 | Giacomo Gabbuti |
| Description | First of all, I reconstructed the intellectual history of thinking of social mobility in Italy. Contrary to expectations, I showed how this topic is not that "new", and that Italian economists and statisticians have been devoting both theoretical and empirical efforts to its study at least from the late 19th century. The same modern measurement and study of inequality was in many ways instrumental to this broad interest. The attention on social mobility somehow faded away after WWII, during the years of the so-called "Economic miracle", to rise again only with the economic decline experienced by Italy in the most recent decades. In some sense this will provide me with a baseline hypothesis on trends in social mobility in the country. I then estimated the first series of wealth concentration for Italy between 1870 and 1914, with provincial detail for 1902 and 1914: while the relatively high share accrued by top 1 and 10% groups remained constant throughout the period, marked province-level differences. These do not seem to be explained by the level of development of the province, both in terms of the level of p.c. wealth and the share of land in wealth. I then produced a methodological chapter that proved that the new sources I am using - individual-level fiscal declarations from several historical sources - made possible to estimate some measures of social mobility in Italy before WWII. Preliminary results from the province of Bergamo show a marked improvement in this dimension from the first stages of Italian industrialisation (1889) to the interwar (1933), and even more comparing contemporary outcomes. I am about to complete a new database of 1,2 million observations that will make possible to estimate province-level estimates for 1933, understanding more about historical differences in social mobility, also to check whether differential in income distribution and wealth concentration could explain these differences across an institutionally homogeneous country like Italy. |
| Exploitation Route | The most crucial contribution will be to make this new database available, providing scholarly documentation on it. I already plan collaborations with other scholars to match this information with other individual-level databases. |
| Sectors | Education Government Democracy and Justice |