This paper considers the German principality of Hesse-Cassel in the 1850s, comparing inheritance institutions and landholding inequality for roughly a thousand mostly agricultural villages and towns. The principality lay between impartible northern Europe and the partible southwest. Inequality in landholding size is measured, showing an average Gini of 0.615 and substantial variation across communities. Places with relatively larger populations and ones that practiced impartible inheritance had mostly higher wealth inequality. The main result is that inheritance norms played a role in causing higher landholding inequality. Higher emigration rates in the impartible communities helped to alleviate landholding inequality.

中文翻译：

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十九世纪德国的继承制度和土地占有不平等：来自黑森-卡塞尔村镇的证据

本文考察了 1850 年代的德国黑森-卡塞尔公国，比较了大约 1000 个以农业为主的村庄和城镇的继承制度和土地所有权不平等。公国位于独立的北欧和可分割的西南之间。测量了土地拥有规模的不平等，显示平均基尼系数为 0.615，社区之间存在很大差异。人口相对较多的地方和实行公平继承的地方，财富不平等程度大多较高。主要结果是继承规范在导致更高的土地占有不平等方面发挥了作用。公平社区中较高的移民率有助于缓解土地持有不平等。