Research Article
BibTex RIS Cite

The Wealth of Ottoman Individuals by Different Socio-Economic Groups, 1650-1918: A Descriptive Analysis in the Context of Institutional Change

Year 2022, Volume: 13 Issue: 33, 236 - 253, 20.02.2022
https://doi.org/10.21076/vizyoner.959067

Abstract

The study offers a descriptive analysis of individual wealth in the Ottoman Empire, employing a new dataset from inheritance records of 36 different provinces located in Anatolia. The main purpose is to contribute to the discussion on the relationship between wealth inequality and changing institutional structures, spanning from 1650 to 1918. The limitations of data entail restrictions to construct a quantitative research, and hence, the study provides an implicit analysis on this relationship. A new dataset on individual wealth, however, allow to present a descriptive analysis in a long-term perspective. Establishing information on individual wealth by socio-economic groups, the study estimates wealth inequality according to Gini coefficients. This estimates also include a comparative analysis among different groups, including four quartiles starting from the wealthiest 25 percent. Our findings underlie the importance of the role of institutional change over the wealth inequality. We suggest the wealth inequality is higher under the periods of decentralized institutions, particularly during the pre-industrial period. This trend has become better with series of political, economic and institutional reforms towards centralization during the second half of the nineteenth century. 

References

  • Acemoğlu, D, & Robinson, J. A. (2012). Why nations fail? The origins of power, prosperity and poverty. Profile Books.
  • Alfani, G., Di Tullio, M, & Fochesato, M. (2020). The determinants of wealth inequality in the Republic of Venice (1400-1800) (CAGE Working Paper, no. 483). Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
  • Altay, B, & Bulut, M. (2017). Vakfiyeler ışığında Osmanlı Makedonya’sında bulunan para vakıflarının sosyo-ekonomik analizi, 1506-1912. Adam Academy Journal of Social Sciences, 7(2), 209-237.
  • Anderson, T. L. (1975). Wealth estimates for New England colonies, 1650-1709. Explorations in Economic History, 12(2), 151-176.
  • Arslantaş, Y. (2019). Making sense of müsadere practice, state confiscation of elite wealth, in the Ottoman Empire, circa 1453-1839. History Compass, 17(6), e12548.
  • Balla, E, & Johnson, N. D. (2009). Fiscal crisis and institutional change in the Ottoman Empire and France. The Journal of Economic History, 69(3), 809-845.
  • Barkan, Ö. L. (1966). Edirne askeri kassamına ait tereke defterleri (1545-1659). Belgeler, 3(5-6), 1-479.
  • Barkan, Ö. L. (1980). Türkiye’de toprak meselesi. Gözlem.
  • Barkey, K. (1994). Bandits and bureaucrats: The Ottoman route to state centralization. Cornell University Press.
  • Bengtsson, E., Missiaia, A., Olsson, M, & Svensson, P. (2018). Wealth inequality in Sweden, 1750-1900. Economic History Review, 71(3), 772-794.
  • Brandt, L., Ma, D, & Rawski, T. G. (2014). From divergence to convergence: Reevaluating the history behind China’s economic boom. Journal of Economic Literature, 52(1), 45-123.
  • Bulut, M, & Altay, B. (2021). The Ottoman economy (1870-1913): Preliminary second-generation estimates. Turkish Journal of Islamic Economics, 8(2), xx-xx.
  • Canbakal, H, & Filiztekin, A. (2021). Wealth and demography in Ottoman probate inventories: A database in very long-term perspective. Historical Methods, 54(2), 94-127.
  • Ceylan, P. (2016). Ottoman inheritance inventories as a source for price history. Historical Methods, 49(3), 132-144.
  • Chor, D. (2005). Institutions, wages, and inequality: The case of Europe and its periphery (1500-1899). Exploration in Economic History, 42, 547-566.
  • Çizakça, M. (1996). A comparative evolution of business partnerships: The Islamic world and Europe, with wpecific reference to the Ottoman archives. Brill.
  • Coşgel, M, & Ergene, B. A. (2011). Intergenerational wealth accumulation and dispersion in the Ottoman Empire: Observations from eighteenth-century Kastamonu. European Review of Economic History, 15, 255-276.
  • Coşgel, M, & Ergene, B. A. (2012). Inequality of wealth in the Ottoman Empire: War, weather, and long-term trends in eighteenth-century Kastamonu. The Journal of Economic History, 72(2), 308-331.
  • Darling, L. (1996). Revenue-rising and legitimacy: Tax collection and finance administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560-1660. Brill.
  • Ergene, B. (2002). Costs of court usage in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ottoman Anatolia: Court fees as recorded in estate inventories. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 45(1), 20-39.
  • Ergene, B, & Berker, A. (2009). Inheritance and intergenerational wealth transmission in eighteenth-century Kastamonu: An empirical investigation. Journal of Family History, 34(1), 25-47.
  • Ergene, B. A., Kaygun A, & Coşgel, M. (2013). A temporal analysis of wealth in eighteenth century Ottoman Kastamonu. Continuity and Change, 28(1), 1-26.
  • Genç, M. (2000). Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda devlet ve ekonomi. Ötüken.
  • Genç, M, & Özvar, E. (2006). Osmanlı maliyesi: Kurumlar ve bütçeler I. Osmanlı Bankası Arşiv ve Araştırma Merkezi.
  • Greif, A. (2006). Institutions and path to the modern economy. Cambridge University Press.
  • Hoffman, P. T. (2015). Why did europe conquer the world?. Princeton University Press.
  • Hoffman, P. T., Jacks, D., Levin, P. A, & Lindert, P. H. (2002). Real inequality in Europe since 1500. The Journal of Economic History, 62(2), 322-355.
  • İnalcık, H. (1994). An economic and social history of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914. Cambridge University Press.
  • İnalcık, H. (2017). The Ottoman Empire and Europe: The Ottoman Empire and its place in European history. Kronik.
  • Jones, A. H. (1970). Wealth estimates for the American middle colonies, 1774. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 18(4), 1-172.
  • Karaman K, & Pamuk, Ş. (2010). Ottoman state finances in European perspective, 1500-1914. The Journal of Economic History, 70(3), 593-629.
  • Karaman K, & Pamuk. Ş. (2013). Different paths to the modern state in Europe: The interaction between warfare, economic structure, and political regime. American Political Science Review, 107(3), 603-626.
  • Kennedy, P. (1988). The rise and fall of the great powers. Unwin Hyman.
  • Kiser, E, & Kane, J. (2001). Revolution and state structure: The bureaucratization of tax administration in early modern England and France. American Journal of Sociology, 107(1), 183-223.
  • Kotzageorgis, P, & Papastamatiou, D. (2014). Wealth accumulation in an urban context. Turkish Historical Review, 5(2), 165-199.
  • Kuran, T. (2011). The long divergence: How Islamic law held back the Middle East. Princeton University Press.
  • Ma, D, & Rubin, J. (2019). The paradox of power: Principal agent problems and administrative capacity in Imperial China (and other absolutist regimes). Journal of Comparative Economics, 47(2), 277-294.
  • Maddison, A. (2001). The world economy: A millennial perspective. OECD Publishing.
  • Maddison, A. (2003). The world economy: historical statistics, OECD Publishing.
  • North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, institutional change and economic performance. Cambridge University Press.
  • North, D. C., Wallis, J. J, & Weingast, B. R. (2009). Violence and social orders: A conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history. Cambridge University Press.
  • Özmucur, S, & Pamuk, Ş. (2002). Real wages and standards of living in the Ottoman Empire, 1489-1914. The Journal of Economic History, 62, 292-321.
  • Pamuk, Ş. (2000). A monetary history of the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge University Press.
  • Pamuk, Ş. (2004a). Institutional change and the longevity of the Ottoman Empire, 1500-1800. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 35(2), 225-247.
  • Pamuk, Ş. (2004b). Prices in the Ottoman Empire, 1469-1914. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 36, 451-468.
  • Pamuk, Ş. (2009). Changes in factor markets in the Ottoman Empire, 1500-1800. Continuity and Change, 24(1), 107-136.
  • Pamuk, Ş. (2010). Osmanlı ekonomisi ve kurumları I. İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları.
  • Root, H. (1989). Tying the king’s hands: Credible commitment and royal fiscal policy during the old regime. Rationality and Society, 1(2), 240-258.
  • Rubin, J. (2017). Rulers, religion and riches: Why the west got rich and the Middle East did not?. Cambridge University Press.
  • Salzmann, A. (1993). An ancien regime revisited: “Privatization” and political economy in the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire. Politics & Society, 21(4), 393-423.
  • Salzmann, A. (2004). Tocqueville in the Ottoman Empire: Rival paths to the modern state. Brill.
  • Shammas, C. (1978). Constructing a wealth distribution from probate records. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 9(2), 297-307.
  • Tezcan, B. (2010). Second Ottoman Empire: Political and social transformation in the early modern world. Cambridge University Press.
  • Tilly, C. (1990). Coercion, capital and European states, 990-1992. Basil Blackwell.
  • Van Zanden, J. L. (1995). Tracing the beginning of the Kuznets curve: Western Europe during the early modern period. Economic History Review, 48(4), 643-664.
  • Van Zanden, J. L. (2003). Inequality of wealth of income distribution. In J. Mokyr (Ed.), Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History (p. 56-59). Oxford University Press.
  • Van Zanden, J. L. (2009). The long road to the industrial revolution: The European economy in a global Perspective. Brill.
  • Vester, M. (2004). The political autonomy of a tax-farm: The Nice-Piedmont gabelle of the Dukes of Savoy, 1535-1580. The Journal of Modern History, 76(4), 745-792.
  • Yaycıoğlu, A. (2016). Partners of the empire: The crisis of the Ottoman order in the age of revolutions. Stanford University Press.

Farklı Sosyo-Ekonomik Gruplara Göre Osmanlı Bireylerinin Zenginliği, 1650-1918: Kurumsal Değişim Bağlamında Betimsel Bir Analiz

Year 2022, Volume: 13 Issue: 33, 236 - 253, 20.02.2022
https://doi.org/10.21076/vizyoner.959067

Abstract

İmparatorluğu'ndaki bireysel servetlerin betimleyici bir analizini sunmaktadır. Temel amaç, 1650'den 1918'e kadar uzanan, servet eşitsizliği ve değişen kurumsal yapılar arasındaki ilişkiye ilişkin tartışmaya katkıda bulunmaktır. Verilerin sınırlılıkları, nicel bir araştırma yapmak için kısıtlamalar getirmektedir ve bu nedenle, bu çalışma bu ilişki hakkında örtük bir analiz sunmaktadır. Bununla birlikte, bireysel servet üzerine yeni bir veri seti, uzun vadeli bir perspektifte tanımlayıcı bir analiz sunmaya izin vermektedir. Sosyoekonomik gruplara göre bireysel servet hakkında bilgi veren bu çalışma, servet eşitsizliğini Gini katsayılarına göre tahmin etmektedir. Bu tahminler, en zengin yüzde 25'ten başlayarak diğer çeyreklik dilimler dahil olmak üzere farklı gruplar arasında karşılaştırmalı bir analiz de sunmaktadır. Bulgularımız, kurumsal değişimin servet eşitsizliği üzerindeki rolünün öneminin altını çizmektedir. Servet dağılımı özellikle ademi merkeziyetçi kurumların hakim olduğu dönemde daha eşitsizdir. Ancak bu eğilim 19. yüzyılda merkezi yapının güçlendirilmesi için yapılan iktisadi, politik ve kurumsal dönüşümlerle daha adil bir dağılıma yönelmiştir. 

References

  • Acemoğlu, D, & Robinson, J. A. (2012). Why nations fail? The origins of power, prosperity and poverty. Profile Books.
  • Alfani, G., Di Tullio, M, & Fochesato, M. (2020). The determinants of wealth inequality in the Republic of Venice (1400-1800) (CAGE Working Paper, no. 483). Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
  • Altay, B, & Bulut, M. (2017). Vakfiyeler ışığında Osmanlı Makedonya’sında bulunan para vakıflarının sosyo-ekonomik analizi, 1506-1912. Adam Academy Journal of Social Sciences, 7(2), 209-237.
  • Anderson, T. L. (1975). Wealth estimates for New England colonies, 1650-1709. Explorations in Economic History, 12(2), 151-176.
  • Arslantaş, Y. (2019). Making sense of müsadere practice, state confiscation of elite wealth, in the Ottoman Empire, circa 1453-1839. History Compass, 17(6), e12548.
  • Balla, E, & Johnson, N. D. (2009). Fiscal crisis and institutional change in the Ottoman Empire and France. The Journal of Economic History, 69(3), 809-845.
  • Barkan, Ö. L. (1966). Edirne askeri kassamına ait tereke defterleri (1545-1659). Belgeler, 3(5-6), 1-479.
  • Barkan, Ö. L. (1980). Türkiye’de toprak meselesi. Gözlem.
  • Barkey, K. (1994). Bandits and bureaucrats: The Ottoman route to state centralization. Cornell University Press.
  • Bengtsson, E., Missiaia, A., Olsson, M, & Svensson, P. (2018). Wealth inequality in Sweden, 1750-1900. Economic History Review, 71(3), 772-794.
  • Brandt, L., Ma, D, & Rawski, T. G. (2014). From divergence to convergence: Reevaluating the history behind China’s economic boom. Journal of Economic Literature, 52(1), 45-123.
  • Bulut, M, & Altay, B. (2021). The Ottoman economy (1870-1913): Preliminary second-generation estimates. Turkish Journal of Islamic Economics, 8(2), xx-xx.
  • Canbakal, H, & Filiztekin, A. (2021). Wealth and demography in Ottoman probate inventories: A database in very long-term perspective. Historical Methods, 54(2), 94-127.
  • Ceylan, P. (2016). Ottoman inheritance inventories as a source for price history. Historical Methods, 49(3), 132-144.
  • Chor, D. (2005). Institutions, wages, and inequality: The case of Europe and its periphery (1500-1899). Exploration in Economic History, 42, 547-566.
  • Çizakça, M. (1996). A comparative evolution of business partnerships: The Islamic world and Europe, with wpecific reference to the Ottoman archives. Brill.
  • Coşgel, M, & Ergene, B. A. (2011). Intergenerational wealth accumulation and dispersion in the Ottoman Empire: Observations from eighteenth-century Kastamonu. European Review of Economic History, 15, 255-276.
  • Coşgel, M, & Ergene, B. A. (2012). Inequality of wealth in the Ottoman Empire: War, weather, and long-term trends in eighteenth-century Kastamonu. The Journal of Economic History, 72(2), 308-331.
  • Darling, L. (1996). Revenue-rising and legitimacy: Tax collection and finance administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560-1660. Brill.
  • Ergene, B. (2002). Costs of court usage in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ottoman Anatolia: Court fees as recorded in estate inventories. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 45(1), 20-39.
  • Ergene, B, & Berker, A. (2009). Inheritance and intergenerational wealth transmission in eighteenth-century Kastamonu: An empirical investigation. Journal of Family History, 34(1), 25-47.
  • Ergene, B. A., Kaygun A, & Coşgel, M. (2013). A temporal analysis of wealth in eighteenth century Ottoman Kastamonu. Continuity and Change, 28(1), 1-26.
  • Genç, M. (2000). Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda devlet ve ekonomi. Ötüken.
  • Genç, M, & Özvar, E. (2006). Osmanlı maliyesi: Kurumlar ve bütçeler I. Osmanlı Bankası Arşiv ve Araştırma Merkezi.
  • Greif, A. (2006). Institutions and path to the modern economy. Cambridge University Press.
  • Hoffman, P. T. (2015). Why did europe conquer the world?. Princeton University Press.
  • Hoffman, P. T., Jacks, D., Levin, P. A, & Lindert, P. H. (2002). Real inequality in Europe since 1500. The Journal of Economic History, 62(2), 322-355.
  • İnalcık, H. (1994). An economic and social history of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914. Cambridge University Press.
  • İnalcık, H. (2017). The Ottoman Empire and Europe: The Ottoman Empire and its place in European history. Kronik.
  • Jones, A. H. (1970). Wealth estimates for the American middle colonies, 1774. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 18(4), 1-172.
  • Karaman K, & Pamuk, Ş. (2010). Ottoman state finances in European perspective, 1500-1914. The Journal of Economic History, 70(3), 593-629.
  • Karaman K, & Pamuk. Ş. (2013). Different paths to the modern state in Europe: The interaction between warfare, economic structure, and political regime. American Political Science Review, 107(3), 603-626.
  • Kennedy, P. (1988). The rise and fall of the great powers. Unwin Hyman.
  • Kiser, E, & Kane, J. (2001). Revolution and state structure: The bureaucratization of tax administration in early modern England and France. American Journal of Sociology, 107(1), 183-223.
  • Kotzageorgis, P, & Papastamatiou, D. (2014). Wealth accumulation in an urban context. Turkish Historical Review, 5(2), 165-199.
  • Kuran, T. (2011). The long divergence: How Islamic law held back the Middle East. Princeton University Press.
  • Ma, D, & Rubin, J. (2019). The paradox of power: Principal agent problems and administrative capacity in Imperial China (and other absolutist regimes). Journal of Comparative Economics, 47(2), 277-294.
  • Maddison, A. (2001). The world economy: A millennial perspective. OECD Publishing.
  • Maddison, A. (2003). The world economy: historical statistics, OECD Publishing.
  • North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, institutional change and economic performance. Cambridge University Press.
  • North, D. C., Wallis, J. J, & Weingast, B. R. (2009). Violence and social orders: A conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history. Cambridge University Press.
  • Özmucur, S, & Pamuk, Ş. (2002). Real wages and standards of living in the Ottoman Empire, 1489-1914. The Journal of Economic History, 62, 292-321.
  • Pamuk, Ş. (2000). A monetary history of the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge University Press.
  • Pamuk, Ş. (2004a). Institutional change and the longevity of the Ottoman Empire, 1500-1800. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 35(2), 225-247.
  • Pamuk, Ş. (2004b). Prices in the Ottoman Empire, 1469-1914. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 36, 451-468.
  • Pamuk, Ş. (2009). Changes in factor markets in the Ottoman Empire, 1500-1800. Continuity and Change, 24(1), 107-136.
  • Pamuk, Ş. (2010). Osmanlı ekonomisi ve kurumları I. İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları.
  • Root, H. (1989). Tying the king’s hands: Credible commitment and royal fiscal policy during the old regime. Rationality and Society, 1(2), 240-258.
  • Rubin, J. (2017). Rulers, religion and riches: Why the west got rich and the Middle East did not?. Cambridge University Press.
  • Salzmann, A. (1993). An ancien regime revisited: “Privatization” and political economy in the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire. Politics & Society, 21(4), 393-423.
  • Salzmann, A. (2004). Tocqueville in the Ottoman Empire: Rival paths to the modern state. Brill.
  • Shammas, C. (1978). Constructing a wealth distribution from probate records. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 9(2), 297-307.
  • Tezcan, B. (2010). Second Ottoman Empire: Political and social transformation in the early modern world. Cambridge University Press.
  • Tilly, C. (1990). Coercion, capital and European states, 990-1992. Basil Blackwell.
  • Van Zanden, J. L. (1995). Tracing the beginning of the Kuznets curve: Western Europe during the early modern period. Economic History Review, 48(4), 643-664.
  • Van Zanden, J. L. (2003). Inequality of wealth of income distribution. In J. Mokyr (Ed.), Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History (p. 56-59). Oxford University Press.
  • Van Zanden, J. L. (2009). The long road to the industrial revolution: The European economy in a global Perspective. Brill.
  • Vester, M. (2004). The political autonomy of a tax-farm: The Nice-Piedmont gabelle of the Dukes of Savoy, 1535-1580. The Journal of Modern History, 76(4), 745-792.
  • Yaycıoğlu, A. (2016). Partners of the empire: The crisis of the Ottoman order in the age of revolutions. Stanford University Press.
There are 59 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Economics
Journal Section Research Articles
Authors

Bora Altay 0000-0003-3098-4728

Koray Göksal This is me 0000-0002-4206-6564

Hande Nur Kırmızıkuşak 0000-0003-2330-566X

Early Pub Date February 20, 2022
Publication Date February 20, 2022
Submission Date June 29, 2021
Published in Issue Year 2022 Volume: 13 Issue: 33

Cite

APA Altay, B., Göksal, K., & Kırmızıkuşak, H. N. (2022). The Wealth of Ottoman Individuals by Different Socio-Economic Groups, 1650-1918: A Descriptive Analysis in the Context of Institutional Change. Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi Vizyoner Dergisi, 13(33), 236-253. https://doi.org/10.21076/vizyoner.959067

570ceb1545981.jpglogo.pngmiar.pnglogo.pnglogo-minik.pngdownloadimageedit_26_6265761829.pngacarlogoTR.png5bd95eb5f3a21.jpg26784img.pngoaji.gifdownloadlogo.pngLogo-png-768x897.png26838