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Adoption, Inheritance, and Wealth Inequality in Pre-industrial Japan and Western Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 December 2024

Yuzuru Kumon
Yuzuru Kumon*
Affiliation:
Post-doctoral Researcher, Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics, Helleveien 30, 5045 Bergen, Norway, and is currently a Lecturer, Department of Economics, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

This paper uses Japanese village censuses, 1637–1872, to measure inequality in landownership. Surprisingly, inequality was low and stable, unlike in Europe, where it was high and increasing. To explain this, I study inter-generational land transmissions. I find that Japanese households without sons adopted male heirs, thereby keeping lands in the family. In contrast, elite English male lines failed 20–30 percent of the time as adoptions were uncommon, leading to a highly unequal redistribution of their lands. Finally, the institutional differences in adoption had roots in fourth-century church policy, and this may partially explain why Europe was more unequal by 1800.

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Article
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The Journal of Economic History , Volume 85 , Issue 1 , March 2025 , pp. 250 - 286
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© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association

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Footnotes

This paper was previously titled “The Deep Roots of Inequality.” I acknowledge funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Program/ERC Grant agreement No. 725687, SMITE Social Mobility and Inequality across Italy and Europe, 1300–1800. I thank Satomi Kurosu and Hiroshi Kawaguchi for kindly sharing their data.

References

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