Land Redistribution, Inequality, and Crisis: Evidence from Colonial Ireland

• In Event: Inequality and (Re)distribution in Europe

Abstract

We study the long-run consequences of land redistribution for political inequality and economic development. Between 1652-9, approximately two-thirds of Ireland’s land was redistributed from Irish Catholic elites to English Protestants under the Cromwellian Settlement. While seminal accounts argue that Ireland’s subsequent economic problems, culminating in the Great Famine of 1845-9, can ultimately be traced back to this event, the connection has never been empirically tested. We combine an unusually rich set of granular data sources with several quasi-experimental research designs to show that local-level variation in land redistribution predicts the severity of the famine two centuries later. To make sense of this persistence, we demonstrate that (1) patterns of land ownership remained fixed following the Settlement; (2) show that political representation shifted away from localities where Catholics represented a greater share of the population; (3) establish that increased political and economic inequality reduced the provision of welfare to the Catholic poor, which ultimately worsened the impact of the Famine.

Authors

• Jeremy Bowles, Stanford University

• Gabriel Koehler-Derrick, Brown University

• Michael P. Olson, Washington University in St. Louis