Ongoing projects

• EUROPE AS ONE COUNTRY. THE LIVING STANDARDS OF EUROPEANS IN THE LONG RUN.

  The proposed research contributes to the future of the European project by exploring Europe’s past. More specifically, we examine the distribution of well-being across Europe for selected benchmark years on the basis of historical household budgets, which provide data on the incomes and consumption patterns of individual families. This approach allows us to move beyond national histories by bringing together families from all over Europe on a comparable basis, understanding the continent-wide distribution of welfare. The historical perspective makes it possible to trace the impact on living standards for different groups of urbanization, industrialization, migration, political dis-integration, war, and depression, and the policy and political reactions this provoked. In this way both the advantages of a common European economy and polity and the threats to it are revealed.

  Europe, 1850-today

• BRINGING AFRICA IN FROM THE COLD.

  In a climate of fear stoked by populist and nationalist calls for curbs on immigration and asylum, it is more important than ever to understand Europe’s relationship with Africa. Rather than turning inward and losing perspective, policy makers and ordinary citizens need to see current events in a broader geographic and historical context. The proposed project provides such context, investigating the long-run evolution of living standards in three African countries: Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Gabon. The basis for this study are household-level data on income and consumption expenditure collected by colonial-era governments and their successors in the early independence period.

  Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Congo and Gabon, 1880-today

• COPING WITH GROWTH, MANAGING DECLINE, AND MAKING TRANSITIONS. LESSONS FROM EUROPE’S URBANIZATION.

  Half the world’s population now lives in cities, but urbanization is far from finished. Especially in low- and middle-income countries cities continue to grow at a pace that frequently overwhelms their infrastructure, public services, and ability to create jobs. European history offers an extraordinary range of experience in which to seek parallels with contemporary issues: megacities and market towns, booming manufacturing cities and declining industrial wastelands, planned suburban communities and ancient urban cores, job creating talent magnets and refuges for impoverished peasants. The proposed project would lay the foundation for a catalogue of European urban experience based on household budgets: detailed information on the incomes, employment, consumption, and access to public services of individual families. This initial study would cover several cities in diverse contexts during the first half of the twentieth century.

  Europe, 1815-today

• POVERTY ON WELFARE. “OPERE PIE”, POOR RELIEF AND PUBLIC CHARITY.

  This is among the richest sources of information for the reconstruction of family budgets on which the HHB project is currently working. The request for State subsidies, welfare support and charitable assistance to any public or private institution is often accompanied by a description of the socio-economic conditions of the applicant's family. The size of the sample to be analyzed could therefore be enormous. Such documentation has a tremendous potential for analysis, especially for the study of the most disadvantaged classes.

  Italy, 1860-today

• PATIENTS IN DEFAULT. CREDIT RECOVERY BY MUNICIPAL HOSPITALS.

  The case of hospitals being owed large amounts by patients who failed to pay hospital fees was so frequent that the Italian government has had to address it through several legislative initiatives. There exists extensive documentation testifying to the incessant attempt of hospitals (especially municipal ones) to recover amounts due. The economic conditions of the debtors were then thoroughly investigated. A first survey done on this source in the Florence Municipal Archive revealed documentation on the economic conditions of about 600 Florentine and non-Florentine families, in the years 1920-1942.

  Italy, 1860-today

• HOME (DESPERATELY) WANTED. REQUESTS FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING.

  During Fascism, Rome was in full expansion, and experienced a full-fledged housing crisis. The private real estate market was having a hard time standing up to the boom in housing requests, especially low cost ones. For this reason the Governorate of Rome intervened, and promoted an affordable housing policy. From the detailed information required of those who applied for affordable housing, the economic conditions of the families can be reconstructed. It is very difficult to precisely estimate of the number of budgets to be obtained from this source: potentially, they could be as many as 35,000, for the years indicated, although information needed for family budgets reconstruction is not always reported.

  Rome, 1925-1935

• WHERE YOU LEAST EXPECT IT. THE BUDGETS OF THE BANKRUPT.

  Among the sources that have already been used to construct the HHB Project Database, one of the most unusual is represented by the trial files for bankruptcy. Family expenses of small business owners, typically small and medium-sized artisans and traders, are often found within the budgets of bankrupt companies. These budgets were preserved because the Italian Civil Code made explicit request for this information on the balance sheet, to see if family expenses were compatible with the company's business trend.

  Italy, 1860-today

• KEPT ON FILE. THE ARCHIVES OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EMPLOYEES.

  These archival collections are a curious and innovative source for the study of households’ living conditions, although extremely variable in terms of the information they contain. Employee files, both from public bodies and private companies, contain most of the time all the information needed to reconstruct family budgets and represent an extremely valuable documentation, because they are a snapshot of the economic conditions of social groups that are poorly represented in official surveys: the middle class clerk, often relegated to being the great silent majority.

  Italy, 1860-today

• RICH AND SUPER-RICH. THE PRIVATE ACCOUNTING OF NOBLE FAMILIES.

  One of the most common criticisms of household budget studies is that they supposedly exclude the right tail of the income distribution (the richest households). Such a criticism could be tackled by incorporating sources which, in fact, precisely represent this segment of society. Many Italian archives, scattered throughout the national territory, preserve accounting records and other documentation of noble or merely well-to-do families who, to preserve imperishable memory of themselves, donated their "papers" to the local provincial and / or municipal archives.

  Italy, 1860-today

• PHILANTHROPIC MILAN. THE ARCHIVE OF THE HUMANITARIAN SOCIETY OF MILAN.

  The Milan Humanitarian Society (MHS) is undoubtedly one of the most notable examples of private social assistance in Italy. But the MHS would also carry out researches on the economic conditions of the working classes. It has produced an unparalleled amount of scientific studies, from which it clearly emerges that family budgets were an instrument of investigation well known to its officials. The studies carried out throughout the liberal period on Milanese urban crafts (tailors, glaziers, silk workers, dyers, pastry cooks, etc.) are of particular interest. The 1903 Milanese working class census will be a useful starting point.

  Milano, 1893-today

• WHEN NUMBERS COUNT. THE COMPETITION FOR LARGE FAMILIES.

  Following the directives of the Fascist Regime, the governorship of Rome specifically supported and assisted large families, to whom various facilities were reserved. The most curious initiative, which is at the same time the most interesting for our purposes, was a competition for large families, organized for three years in a row starting in 1932: the competition would give away six houses every year, to be assigned to the six more deserving families. Information regarding competitors is every bit as valuable as other sources in recovering family budgets. Beyond monetary information, other interesting pieces information are provided, such as family pictures, medical and criminal files of each individual, or police and examining commission reports.

  Rome, 1932-1935