The richest families in Florence, Italy, seem to be very good at maintaining their wealth – almost 600 years to the present time.
That’s the finding of a recent study that compared information on taxpayers’ income in Florence in 1427 and 2011, by two Italian economists, Guglielmo Barone and Sauro Mocetti. When comparing the value of the family fortune with that of the people of the same name living today, they found that the richest families in Florence 600 years ago still hold their position to this day.
“The highest earners of today’s income taxpayers, it turns out, their families were at the top of the socioeconomic ladder six centuries ago,” Barone and Mocetti said. Reportedly, the aforementioned study took advantage of an unprecedented set of data – data on income taxpayers in 1427 that were digitized and posted on the internet – thereby drawing on trends. long-term economic flows.
Accident of birth…
Although the researchers acknowledge that loopholes can appear when tracing the value of family assets based on surnames, it is worth noting that Italian surnames are always very regional. and tends to be passed down from generation to generation . The families that stood at the top of the socioeconomic ladder six centuries ago are now the top earners among income taxpayers today. Those at the top of the ladder used to work in the jobs that brought them the most prestige in society, while the families at the bottom of the ladder worked in less respected occupations and earned below average income.
While it is not surprising to learn that families have passed on their wealth to their descendants, the fact that these families have been able to maintain prosperity through many stages – including The siege of Florence, Napoleon’s conquest of Italy, Mussolini’s dictatorship, and two world wars – is a very respectable thing.
The study also gives us more evidence that the rich stay rich. In the UK, researchers have shown that the status of a family in England can be maintained for more than 8 consecutive centuries, or more than 28 generations. This feature can also be seen in many of China’s great clans, which have held a high position in society since the Mao Zedong era to the present.