The Political Economy of Inequality in Historical Perspective

Over the past decade, inequality has reemerged as one of the most pressing concerns across the social sciences. Recent historical research has profoundly reshaped our understanding of the long-term dynamics of income and wealth distribution. The availability of new historical datasets - derived from tax records, inheritance and property registers, corporate balance sheets, and financial archives - has enabled scholars to reconstruct inequality with a degree of precision that was previously unattainable.

Yet, despite these advances, the political and institutional dimensions of inequality remain insufficiently integrated into the broader historical analysis. We still lack a systematic understanding of how state structures, regime changes, and distributional conflicts have shaped patterns of inequality over time. This workshop aims to address this gap by examining the complex interplay between economic structures and political institutions in the evolution of inequality.

The workshop will bring together historians, economists, and social scientists to foster interdisciplinary dialogue between quantitative and qualitative approaches. By linking statistical reconstruction with institutional and political analysis, the meeting will explore how inequalities are created, sustained, and occasionally reversed through historical processes of power, policy, and social conflict.

The workshop is organized beiJens Beckert (MPIfG) and Alexander Nützenadel (HU Berlin).