On Historical Household Budgets

43 Pages Posted: 11 Jun 2016

See all articles by Brian A'Hearn

Brian A'Hearn

Pembroke College, Oxford

Nicola Amendola

University of Rome Tor Vergata - Department of Economics and Finance

Giovanni Vecchi

University of Rome Tor Vergata - Faculty of Economics

Date Written: May 2016

Abstract

The paper argues that household budgets are the best starting point for investigating a number of big questions related to the evolution of the living standards during the last two-three centuries. If one knows where to look, historical family budgets are more abundant than might be suspected. And statistical techniques have been developed to handle the associated problems of small, incomplete, and unrepresentative samples. We introduce the Historical Household Budgets (HHB) Project, aimed at gathering data and sources, but also at creating an informational infrastructure that provides i) reliable storage and easy access to historical family budget data, along with ii) tools to configure the data as it is entered so as to harmonise it with present-day surveys.

Keywords: Household budgets; household budget surveys; living standards; inequality; poverty; survey; globalization; purchasing power parities; grouped data; poststratification

JEL Classification: N30, I31, I32, C81, C83, D60, D63, O12, O15

Suggested Citation

A'Hearn, Brian and Amendola, Nicola and Vecchi, Giovanni, On Historical Household Budgets (May 2016). Institute for New Economic Thinking Working Paper Series No. 45, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2793438 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2793438

Brian A'Hearn

Pembroke College, Oxford ( email )

Department of Economics
Manor Road
Oxford, OX1 3UQ
United Kingdom

Nicola Amendola

University of Rome Tor Vergata - Department of Economics and Finance ( email )

Rome
Italy

Giovanni Vecchi (Contact Author)

University of Rome Tor Vergata - Faculty of Economics ( email )

Via Columbia n.2
Rome, rome 00100
Italy
+39 6 7259 5730 (Phone)
+39 6 2020 500 (Fax)

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