The Unassuming Economist

The ongoing Covid-19 crisis, which is likely to exacerbate economic inequality within countries in the West and probably among countries worldwide (Furceri, Loungani, Ostry, Pizzuto, 2021), has reinstated the need for a thorough investigation into the causes and consequences of inequality. In a recent column for VoxEU CEPR, economists Guido Alfani, Victoria Gierok, and Felix Schaff discuss inequality in the context of Germany over the years.

This column reconstructs wealth inequality in Germany over five centuries and demonstrates potential leveling effects of catastrophes with the help of evidence from events like the Black Death and the Thirty Years’ War. They conclude with insights like the fact that inequality falls in the aftermath of epidemics only in the presence of extremely high mortality rates.

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