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Enforcing Colonial Rule: Blood Tax and Head Tax in French West Africa
How coercive were African colonial states? Scholars – economists, historians, or political scientists – don’t always agree. Some see colonial states as omnipotent Leviathans, while
ReadIntergenerational Mobility in Hong Kong, 1976-2016
Hong Kong’s laissez-faire economic model spurred rapid growth in the second half of the 20th century, but it also led to rising inequality, placing it
ReadFirms as tax shelters: The disguise of personal expenses as business expenses erodes tax revenues
By how much and how do individuals who control firms blur the lines between personal and business expenses to avoid taxes? By disguising personal expenditures
ReadInequality in 2024: a closer look at six regions
For more than 10 years, the World Inequality Lab has been working to produce data on income inequality, now covering 216 countries, with data going
Read10 facts on global inequality in 2024
The World Inequality Database (WID) provides open access to the most extensive database on the historical evolution of economic inequality. Updated annually by the World
ReadChina vs. India: how human capital shaped two distinct economic paths
Between the 1910s and 2010, the education systems in China and India experienced remarkable growth, producing millions of skilled graduates and employing vast numbers of
ReadExploring optimal taxation to tackle the regressivity of Italy’s tax system
Income and wealth inequality have been steadily rising in most developed economies since the 1980s, driven by wealthier households earning higher returns on their capital.
ReadThe local environmental and welfare effects of large industrial shutdowns in Germany
The clean energy transition and large-scale deindustrialization are transforming the industrial landscape of high-income economies, sparking debates over who will benefit and who will be
ReadWealth and income inequality on the rise in preindustrial Southern Italy 1550-1800
Economic inequality in pre-industrial societies has only recently become the subject of systematic research. Southern Italy offers a particularly good setting for studying the long-term
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