Tracing out the Finnish Kuznets Curve: Famine, Threat of Revolution, and Democratization

• In Event: State Capacity and Historical Political Economy

Brief Overview

We document the following chain of events in Finland: the high inequality of the early 1900s caused social unrest; this social unrest promoted democratization and redistribution, which in turn led to a sudden decrease in inequality.

Authors

• Jaakko Meriläinen, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México

• Matti Mitrunen, Harris School, University of Chicago

• Tuomo Virkola, European University Institute