Statistics seminar 2016: "Living standards and inequality: the historical experience of poverty related disease in Italy and Spain" and "Misleading data: grain prices and wages in eighteenth century Milan"

Seminario congiunto di Statistica

  • Data: 14 ottobre 2016 dalle 14:00 alle 15:30

  • Luogo: Dipartimento di Scienze Statistiche "P. Fortunati" - Via Belle Arti 41 - Aula III

Relatori:

Josep Bernabeu-Mestre (University of Alicante), Lucia Pozzi (University of Sassari)

"Living standards and inequality: the historical experience of poverty related disease in Italy and Spain"
Health is one of the fundamental components that define living standards. The prevalence of poverty related disease is a good indicator that shows living standards and inequalities affecting past and present societies. Currently there are many indicators that show the inequalities between different groups and sectors of the population, but when it comes to historical research, sources are limited.
As it is observed nowadays with the so called neglected tropical diseases (WHO), these pathologies were part of the vicious circle of poverty, misery, hunger and infection affecting large sectors of the population.
Italian and Spanish historical experiences in combating diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, trachoma or leprosy document the degree of social and health inequality that characterized Mediterranean Europe as well as the social determinants of those diseases. These historical experiences also show that only the improvement of living condition, together with public health measures, allowed achieve the control and eradication of poverty related diseases.

Luca Mocarelli (Milano Bicocca University)

"Misleading data: grain prices and wages in eighteenth century Milan"
My paper critically considers the recent debate on living standards taking into account grain prices and wages in eighteenth century Milan.
The choice is significant because a large part of comparative studies on living standards in Europe that include Italy has almost always built on De Maddalena’s data on Milan.
A first element that is highlighted is that a reconstruction of living standards built on wholesale prices of grains, as has usually been done up to now, is  misleading since it leads to an overestimation of the decrease of purchasing power.
A careful consideration of wages follows. It demonstrates that the uniformity of remuneration for builders in the XVIIIth century shown by De Maddalena's data is once again misleading and leads again to an overestimation of the decline in living standards.
As consequence it seems really problematic to build up a picture of living conditions in Italy based on data with such limitations.


Contact person
Alessandra Samoggia