Wealth and demography in Ottoman probate inventories: A database in very long-term perspective

This article uses a novel database of Ottoman probates and examines some of the methodological difficulties that arise in very long-term analysis. Wealth statistics, spanning from 1460 to 1920 in the longest subsample, indicate approximately an inverted U-shaped pattern that may signal the limits of extensive growth. While plausible, severity of the drop on the right side of the wealth curve does not entirely match recent scholarship on the Ottoman Empire. Examining the effect of biases and changes in probate demography on wealth, we explore how real the observed wealth pattern is. We employ descriptive statistics, linear regression and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, and find that demographic composition matters but does not alter the shape of the wealth curve. Explanation for the gap between probate findings and current historiography, therefore, must lie elsewhere.

本文采用一套新型奥斯曼遗嘱认证档案（Ottoman probates）数据库，探讨了超长时段分析中遇到的若干方法论难题。其中最长子样本的财富统计数据时间跨度为1460年至1920年，整体呈现近似倒U型的分布模式，这或可预示粗放型增长的极限所在。尽管该模式看似合理，但财富曲线右侧的下滑幅度与近期奥斯曼帝国史学研究的结论并不完全契合。本文通过考察遗嘱认证人口统计的偏差与变动对财富分布的影响，探究观测到的财富模式的真实可靠性。本文运用描述性统计、线性回归以及奥瓦克萨-布林德分解（Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition）方法，研究发现人口结构确实会对财富分布产生影响，但并未改变财富曲线的整体形态。因此，遗嘱认证研究结论与当前史学研究之间的差异，其成因必然另有他处。