Dr. Daniel R. Curtis will join the History department with his project: ‘Positively Shocking! The Redistributive Impact of Mass Mortality through Epidemic Diseases and Violent Conflict in Early Modern Northwest Europe’.
About the project:
Catastrophic shocks redistribute economic resources. Indeed, recently it has been argued that the only times socio-economic inequalities levelled themselves out throughout history were during episodes of extreme violence or sudden mass mortality caused by epidemics. However, while evidence is more convincing for the 19th century onwards, the story for the pre-industrial period is founded on only a handful of empirical examples. Many of the ‘equalizing’ mechanisms invoked to explain this trend to only apply to the Black Death of 1347-52 (destruction of labor with untouched capital), or were just very rare (total destruction of all capital goods). The basic objective of this project then is to acquire evidence to formally test recent scholarly assertions made on the equitable effect of catastrophic shocks. Rather than accepting an inevitable ‘model’ of redistribution after epidemics or violence throughout history, the goal of this project is to show in what conditions a particular redistributive effect was more likely to occur – its direction, intensity and longevity. The added value of the project consists of first, considering epidemiological characteristics as a potential driver of distribution outcomes, and second, broadening analysis of distribution away from material economic resources to examine how different epidemic shocks can shape future prospects of children and youth, and affect societal attitudes towards the poor.