When the Leopard meets Gatsby. Inheritance, inequality, and social mobility in liberal and fascist Italy

Thesis

This dissertation studies the evolution of income and wealth inequality, the intergenerational transmission of economic status, as well as the intellectual and political history of inequality, in the decades between Italy’s unification and World War II, with a particular focus on the Fascist period. In its different chapters, it presents and critically assess new sources for investigating the wealth and incomes of Italians in this period, mostly of fiscal nature. Building on these sources, it documents the estimation of new national series of inheritance flows, wealth-to-income ratio, wealth composition, top wealth shares, top income shares, within-labour and overall income inequality, gender and skill gaps, intergenerational mobility, as well as regional and provincial figures for a number of these indicators. These indicators are contextualised in the socio-economic developments of the period, and especially, the economic and fiscal policies enacted in the Fascist period. At the same time, the dissertation offers the first historical reconstruction of a crucial episode in the history of inequality in interwar Italy, that is, the abolition of inheritance tax, abruptly announced by Mussolini’s government few months after the March on Rome, within a broader discussion of the economic thought on inheritance, the transmission of status, and more broadly, social mobility, by Italian economists and statisticians between the end of the 19th century and the 1950s. While enriching our understanding of distributive trends in Italy, the results highlight the regressive nature of the Fascist regime: during this period, both income inequality and intergenerational transmission of status increased, reverting a long-run declining trend.

Authors: Gabbuti, G

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English