Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/93288 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 7938
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Starting from the medieval period, women in the Italian Alps experienced a progressive erosion in property rights over the commons. We collected documents about the evolution of inheritance regulations on collective land issued by hundreds of peasant communities over a period of six centuries (13th-19th). Based on this original dataset, we provide a long-term perspective of decentralized institutional change in which gender-biased inheritance systems emerged as a defensive measure to preserve the wealth of community insiders. This institutional change had implications also for the protection from economic shocks, for population growth, and for marriage strategies.
Subjects: 
land rights
endogamy
migrations
common property
JEL: 
J16
N53
Q20
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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