Information about the income distribution in pre-industrial societies is sparse. We analyze labor income inequality in 18th century Murcia, a city in Mediterranean Spain. The historical income distribution of this region is relatively unknown, despite it having on of the highest urbanization rates in Europe in the pre-industrial era. We first use a census conducted in the 1750s which collected information on income and occupation. We then use this income information to conduct analyses of the income distribution in the 1730s and 1780s using censuses with information about the occupational distribution. We find large changes in the distribution of occupations across the censuses. We show that our results on inequality are sensitive to assumptions regarding household composition and within-occupation distribution of income, but not to the definition of household income.

工业化前社会中有关收入分配的信息很少。我们分析了18世纪西班牙地中海城市穆尔西亚的劳动收入不平等。尽管该地区的历史收入分布相对不为人所知，尽管它是工业化前时期欧洲城市化率最高的国家。我们首先使用在1750年代进行的人口普查，该普查收集了有关收入和职业的信息。然后，我们使用此收入信息通过普查以及有关职业分布的信息来分析1730年代和1780年代的收入分布。我们发现人口普查中的职业分布发生了巨大变化。我们表明，关于不平等的结果对有关家庭构成和收入的职业内部分配的假设敏感，