Epidemic mortality and redistribution of housing wealth in Leiden, 1632–1668

Abstract

How did epidemic mortality affect housing wealth in the pre-industrial period? Using new data on house ownership and variation in street-level mortality in seventeenth-century Leiden, we show that although epidemic mortality targeted poor streets where residents were typically tenants and not owners, these outbreaks still increased the turnover of houses. Ordinarily, turnover was higher in owner-occupied housing sectors, while epidemics created more turnover for low-value houses consolidated in the hands of wealthy investors. In combination with a lack of house price adjustments due to rapid demographic recovery after epidemics, this meant that houses were passed between long-standing owners with similar housing wealth profiles. As a result, epidemics did not affect aggregate housing wealth inequality.