Why do some workers earn more than others? Why does wage inequality rise in some historical periods and fall in others? These questions are now at the heart of economic and political debate, yet their origins extend far beyond the modern economy. The WIDE project (Wage Inequality and Dispersion in Early Economies), carried out under the University of Siena’s ‘New Frontiers’ research funding programme, seeks to answer these questions by looking back several centuries and reconstructing how wages were distributed before the emergence of the modern labour market.
“When we talk about wage inequality today, we tend to focus on the last few decades,” explains Leonardo Ridolfi, the project’s principal investigator at the University’s Department of Economics and Statistics. “In fact, many of the mechanisms governing the labour market have much deeper roots. To understand where inequalities come from, we need to study how they have evolved over the long run.”
The project challenges a long-established assumption in economic history. For decades, scholars have reconstructed average wages to measure living standards in medieval and early modern Europe. Although these figures help us understand whether workers became richer or poorer over time, they often conceal substantial differences among workers themselves.
“Two cities may have the same average wage while displaying completely different levels of inequality,” the professor points out. “Our aim is precisely to bring these hidden differences to light.”
To do so, WIDE reconstructs the entire wage distribution rather than limiting itself to calculating averages. Instead of asking how much the ‘typical’ worker earned, the project examines who received higher wages, who earned less, and how these differences changed over time, across occupations and in different urban settings.
The research focuses primarily on late medieval Italy, a period that provides a natural laboratory for the study of labour markets.
One of the most significant episodes examined by the project is the period following the Black Death. The pandemic was one of the greatest demographic and labour-market shocks in history, offering an ideal case for understanding how major demographic crises affect the distribution of wages.
“The Black Death drastically reduced Europe’s population,” Ridolfi observes. “We know that wages rose on average because labour became scarcer. What we still do not know is whether all workers benefited equally from this change. Did inequality decline because workers gained greater bargaining power, or were some groups able to capture most of the benefits? This is one of the project’s central questions.”
Another fundamental dimension of the research concerns the role of political institutions. In the late Middle Ages, many Italian cities underwent profound transformations, moving from communal governments to lordships ruled by powerful families, such as the Medici in Florence. These changes profoundly altered taxation, public spending, labour-market rules and relations between authorities and workers.
“Institutions shape the way labour markets function, today as in the past,” the scholar notes. “By comparing cities that followed different political trajectories, we can better understand how forms of government affected wage inequality long before the emergence of modern states.”
The project combines archival research with advanced quantitative methods. Hundreds of wage registers preserved in Italian archives are collected, digitised, transcribed and analysed. These sources make it possible to reconstruct the earnings of individual workers over time, allowing researchers to observe the entire wage distribution rather than average values alone.
Advanced statistical techniques are then applied to these data to measure inequality and identify its main determinants. By integrating historical sources with modern quantitative tools, WIDE builds a bridge between economic history and labour economics.
Although the project focuses on medieval Europe, its implications extend far beyond the past. In recent decades, rising wage inequality, changes in labour markets and growing economic disparities have once again moved to the centre of public debate. Understanding how wages responded centuries ago to demographic crises, institutional change and economic transformation offers new tools for interpreting the dynamics that continue to characterise labour markets today.
Rather than treating history as a mere succession of events, WIDE uses it as a laboratory in which to test general economic theories. By studying pre-industrial societies, the project aims to identify the fundamental forces shaping inequality in settings where factors now regarded as central—such as globalisation, trade unions, minimum wages and welfare systems—were still weak or absent.
“History cannot offer immediate solutions to present-day problems, but it can provide something equally valuable: a long-term perspective,” Professor Ridolfi concludes. “Understanding how wage inequality emerged and evolved over the centuries helps us interpret more clearly the economic forces that continue to shape our societies.”
Ultimately, WIDE demonstrates how historical research can contribute directly to major contemporary debates. By combining the study of primary sources, quantitative analysis and an interdisciplinary approach, the project shows that some of the most important economic questions of our time have roots stretching back many centuries—and that understanding the past is essential to interpreting the present and imagining the future.