Pandemics of the past: an economical reflection about the Black Death.

 When we talk about economy, one of the main topics that comes about is the inequality phenomenon. After watching videos of different plagues in class, i asked miself: What is the economical impact of this plagues on world economy?. My initial thoughts were that, without a doubt, large plagues have a negative economic effect in all economic aspect. But after a little of research, i realize that i was wrong in my thoughts: The Black Death reduced the income inequality in Europe in a large way. Here the explanation:

In the 14th century, Europe has a great income inequality, the social-economic structure of the continent was mainly an uneven relationship between landlords and their workers. By those days (before the Black Death outbreak) the richest 10% of the population was owner of the 70% of total wealth. What happened is that after the Black Death ended, the population of Europe decreased considerably beacause of the deaths, affecting all social classes, mainly the poorest. The shortage of workers had an impact on the labour market, rising up the average wage of poor people working for landlords, making the inquality goes down. Also, the shortage of workers had an negative impact in the value of land, making it cheaper. That allowed more people to move up from being a land worker to a landlord itself. 

So in conclussion, the Black Death had a positive impact in some economic variables in Europe, by the way of increasing workers average wage and decreasing the value of land, it produced a decrease in inequality and facilitated upward social mobility. 



Comments

  1. Ilryeon YunSeptember 6, 2023 at 4:10 PM

    That's surprising that the plague improved Europe economic

    ReplyDelete
  2. Natsumi IwamotoSeptember 6, 2023 at 4:13 PM

    Oh I couldn't catch it in the listening! improving income inequality was very nice for them:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tomoe ArakiSeptember 6, 2023 at 4:14 PM

    I know the Black Death was a serious problem.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Fumiya NakagawaSeptember 6, 2023 at 4:15 PM

    The fingernail of pandemic is serious. We need to address it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Aina TaniguchiSeptember 6, 2023 at 4:41 PM

    I did not notice any income disparity. Great perspective！

    ReplyDelete

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