Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Cliff T. Bekar
Author-Workplace-Name: Lewis & Clark College
Author-Name: Clyde G. Reed
Author-Workplace-Name: Simon Fraser University
Title:  Risk, Asset Markets, and Inequality: Evidence from Medieval England
Abstract: Between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries English peasants faced large income 
shocks relative to mean incomes. Innovations in property rights over land induced peasants to 
respond by trading small parcels of land as part of their risk coping strategy. The same period 
witnessed a dramatic increase in inequality in the distribution of peasant landholdings. We argue
that these events are related. When agents are able to trade their productive assets to manage risk, 
wealth dynamics become unstable and generate increasing inequality over time. We analyze the 
effects of these dynamics in the context of medieval English land markets and peasant landholdings. 
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Length: 26 pages
Creation-Date: 2009-10-01
Number: _079
File-URL: http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/materials/papers/4235/BekarReed79.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:nuf:esohwp:_079