Giacomo Gabbuti - Research

Academic Publications

Human Development, in G. Vecchi (Ed.), Measuring Wellbeing. A History of Italian Living Standards (OUP, 2017), pp. 454-491 (with Nicola Amendola & Giovanni Vecchi);
L’“altra metà” della scienza economica: la misurazione della disuguaglianza in Italia tra le due guerre, Il Pensiero Economico Italiano, (2019), 27 (2), pp. 107-134;
Between Pareto and Gini: Notes on the Emergence of Modern Measurement of Personal Income Inequality in Italy (c. 1890-1940), History of Political Economy, (2020) 52 (3), pp. 435-454;
The Italian Economy Under Fascism, Rivista di storia economica, (2020) 36 (3), pp. 247-252 (with Brian A'Hearn);
«When We Were Worse off». The Economy, Living Standards and Inequality in Fascist Italy, Rivista di storia economica, (2020) 36 (3), pp. 253-298;
Labor Shares and Inequality: Insights from Italian Economic History, 1895-1970, European Review of Economic History, (2021) 25 (2), pp. 355-378 (WP version);
Il fascismo “liberista” e la “quasi abolizione” dell’imposta di successione del 1923, in Piero Barucci, Piero Bini, Lucilla Conigliello (edited by), Le sirene del corporativismo e l’isolamento dei dissidenti durante il fascismo (FUP, 2021), pp. 171-196 (Open Access) - media coverage: Domani, 26/05/2021;
Introduction: The Italian Economy Under Fascism, Part II, Rivista di storia economica, (2022) 38 (3), pp. 265-269 (with Brian A'Hearn);
Difendere la produzione, difendersi dalla redistribuzione, Studi Storici, (2022) 63 (4), pp. 829-864 (with Bruno Settis);
Fenoaltea in the Italian Mirror: Recollections by a Student of His, Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, (2022) 56 (1), pp. 177-190 (Open Access);
The Use of Composite Indices in Economic History: A Long-Standing, Not Silly Debate, Rivista di Storia Economica/Italian Review of Economic History, (2023) 39 (1), pp. 115-118 (with Nicola Amendola & Giovanni Vecchi) (Open Access);
On Some Problems of Using the Human Development Index in Economic History, European Review of Economic History, (2023) 27 (4), pp. 477–505 (with Nicola Amendola & Giovanni Vecchi) - (WP version, covered in Utrecht University Economic and Social History Blog).
'Non-competing social groups'? The long debate on social mobility in Italy (c. 1890-1960), European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, (2023) 30 (6), pp. 1124-1149 - (WP version);
Fiscal Sources and the Distribution of Income in Italy: The Italian Historical Taxpayers’ Database, Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, (2023) 57 (1), pp. 107-150 (Open Access) - (WP version);
Crescita, accumulazione e distribuzione in Italia durante il fascismo: cesure e continuità tra politica ed economia, Studi Storici, (2024) 65 (1), pp. 129-160 - media coverage: Radio Radicale, 5/05/2024;
Incomes and Employment of Italian Women, 1900-1950, in M. Mosca (Ed.), Women at Work in Italy (1750-1950), Their Economic Thought and Actions (Springer, 2024), pp. 131-55 (with María Gómez León) - (WP version);
Intellectual Property Rights in Fascist Italy: “Modernization” and Continuity under Dictatorship, in P. Sean Morris (Ed.), The Silent Peacemaker: Intellectual Property Rights and the Interwar International Legal Order, 1919 – 1939 (Brill, 2024), pp. 183–222 (with Alessandro Nuvolari and Caterina Sganga);
«La guerra sotto diverso nome continua ancora»? La politica economica dalla Marcia su Roma alla crisi dell’ordine internazionale, in Lucia Ceci, Alessio Gagliardi, Antonella Meniconi, Gregorio Sorgonà (Eds.), Il fascismo. Un regime di guerra (Viella, 2025), pp. 153-176 (with Bruno Settis).
Stability in Search of Explanations: Quantifying Italian Businesswomen in the Twentieth Century, Business History, 10.1080/00076791.2025.2511199 (with Stefania Licini);
Wealth, Inheritance, and Concentration: An ‘Old’ New Perspective on Italy and its Regions from Unification to the Great War, Review of Income and Wealth, 71, no. 3: e70023: https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.70023 (Open Access) (Stone Center Working Paper Series no. 78 and LEM WP 2023/43 WP versions) (with Salvatore Morelli). Data & Replication Code available here. Preliminary estimates included in G. Alfani, S. Schifano, Wealth inequality in the long run, in OECD, How Was Life? Volume II - New Perspectives on Well-being and Global Inequality since 1820 (OECD, 2021). Media coverage: Venerdì, 17/01/2025 and 30/04/2025; The Economist, 27/02/2025; Reuters, 18/11/2025;
Wars, Depression, and Fascism: Income Inequality in Italy, 1900-1950, Explorations in Economic History, 2025, 10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101715 (with María Gómez León) (Open Access) (DT-EHV 2024/01 and LEM Working Paper Series 2022/26 WP versions);
Divari regionali e distribuzione personale nell’Italia pre- e post-unitaria, in E. Felice (Ed.), La via del Sud. Per una storia nuova (il Mulino, in press), pp. 177-202 (with Guido Alfani).

Working papers

A Golden Age for all? Income Inequality and Social Classes in Italy, 1951-1973, LEM Working Paper Series 2026/11 (with Edoardo Rappa);
Historical Social Tables: Advantages, Methodology, and Problems, LEM Working Paper Series 2026/04, DT-EHV 2026/02, Stone Center Working Paper Series no. 121, and EHES Working Paper Series No. 296 (with Philipp Erfurth, María Gómez León, and Branko Milanovic);
Those Who Were Better Off: Capital and Top Incomes in Fascist Italy, LEM Working Paper Series 2022/31 (previously circulated as A Noi! Income Inequality and Italian Fascism: Evidence from Factor and Top Income Shares, Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers 177/2020);
Wealth and Ideology in Italy: The 1923 ''Quasi Abolition'' of Inheritance Tax and Fascists' ''Middle Class Politics'', LEM Working Paper Series 2023/04.

Work in progress

Gatsby in the country of The Leopard. Social Mobility across Italian Provinces, 1889-2005;
Gender Inequality in Incomes and Employment in Italy, 1901-2019 (with María Gómez León and Edoardo Rappa);
Inequality Knowledge in Republican Italy (c. 1945-1975);
La politica economica del fascismo e il problema dei “ceti medi” urbani (with Valerio Torreggiani);
‘Madly Poor’. Asylum and Poverty Relief in Fascist Italy, 1926-1943;
Mobility of the Innocents. Foundlings and their descendants in 19th century-Florence (with Brian A'Hearn and Giuliana Freschi);
Tax policies and business interests in Fascist Italy (with Fernando Salsano);
“Where is merit?” Maffeo Pantaleoni's Initial and Final positions on Equality of Opportunity.

Book Reviews

The Italian economy, by Vera Zamagni, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, (2022) 27 (4): 652–654;
Ricchi e poveri. Storia della diseguaglianza, by Pierluigi Ciocca, RiSES-Ricerche di storia economica e sociale, VIII, 2022, 1-2, 177-188 (with Stefania Licini).

Other publications

Disuguaglianze e stato sociale. Meno fragili davanti ai nuovi rischi, in Un altro mondo è ancora possibile? Lo spazio dell’alternativa vent’anni dopo Genova e Porto Alegre, edited by Cantiere delle Idee e Fairwatch (Fondazione Feltrinelli, 2021) (with Beatrice Carella and Patrizia Luongo);
Un piano per il futuro della fabbrica di Firenze. Dall’ex GKN alla Fabbrica socialmente integrata, A cura dei docenti, ricercatori e ricercatrici dell’Istituto di Economia della Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna e del gruppo di ricercatori e ricercatrici solidali (Fondazione Feltrinelli, 2022);
Non è giusta. L'Italia delle disuguaglianze, edited by me for Editori Laterza (Rome-Bari, 2025). Covered by: Repubblica; Terzo Giornale; Micromega; Fatto Quotidiano; Collettiva; Jacobin; La Lettura; Le Monde; EticaEconomia; RadioPopolare; il manifesto; Pubblico; Corriere del Mezzogiorno; RaiParlamento Magazine; Lavialibera; Radio3; Newsletter Biblioteca Baffi; 29esimo Rapporto Caritas sulla Povertà in Italia; Domani; L'Antidiplomatico; RadioGrad; Le Monde;
L’ingiustizia delle tante disuguaglianze: perché e come occuparsene, in Fuori Campo. Lo sguardo della prossimità, 29esimo Rapporto Caritas sulla povertà in Italia, 2025 (with Salvatore Morelli);
Diseguali non si nasce. Una breve storia delle disuguaglianze di reddito e ricchezza in Italia, in Diseguaglianze e progresso verso la salute del futuro nell’era dell’IA, Fondazione Roche, 2026.

The 'Picture of the Society' (Pareto 1906)

In my DPhil dissertation, entitled When The Leopard Meets Gatsby. Inheritance, Inequality, and Social Mobility in Liberal and Fascist Italy, I investigated the evolution of income, wealth inequality and social mobility in Italy, between the unification of the country (1861) and the 'economic miracle' of the 1950s, from both a quantitative perspective, and a history of ideas and debases on inequality and its "ideology".
The dissertation has been funded by the ESRC Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership, and a Scatchered European Scholarship of the University of Oxford; in 2019/2020, I worked on this project as a recipient of the "Giulio Einaudi" scholarship, awarded by the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi Onlus (Turin); the fourth and final year, I was supported by a fellowship by the Istituto Italiano di Studi Storici (Naples).
While the sources behind the estimation of social mobility for the interwar have been documented in an article for the Annals of the Fondazione, jointly with my advisor Brian A'Hearn and colleague Giuliana Freschi we are explorign the possibility of investigating social mobility by means of special surnames, such as those of the foundlings.

From my MPhil, I have been interested in what happened to income distribution during the fascist period in Italy. My dissertation, entitled A Noi! Economic Inequality and the Political Economy of Italian Fascism, won both the Feinstein Prize for the best master dissertation, awarded by the Economic and Social History programme at the University of Oxford, and the Francesca Carnevali Prize for the best dissertation in Italian economic history, by the Associazione Per la Storia Economica.
This work resulted into a working paper on top income shares and inequality in 1914-1952, that has been awarded the Marcello De Cecco prize. A revised version was included in my doctoral dissertation, and available in a revised WP version; I also aim at expanding the series by means of new fiscal sources for the 1950s.
The project also led to a paper on the evolution of the Italian labour share from 1895 to present, published on the European Review of Economic History. This first, annual proxy of income distribution highlighted so far overlooked aspects its evolution in Fascist Italy, including the Great War, the 1920s and the Great Depression.
To expand this first insight, and enlarge the analysis to aspects such as gender gaps and the relative position of the middle classes, together with María Gómez León we proposed new pseudo-Gini estimates based on on dynamic social tables, covering the whole 1901-1950 period. With Edoardo Rappa, we expanded the dynamic social tables to the 1950-1973 period, to estimate for the first time inequality in this crucial period of Italian history.
With Philipp Erfurth, María Gómez León, and Branko Milanovic, we have recently released a working paper discussing "advantages, methodology and problems" of historical social tables, to contribute to develop more comparable and consistent work based on this methodology.

The son of the War (Scalarini 1920)

With María Gómez León, we also wrote a chapter specifically on gender income and employment differentials in Italy in the first half of the 20th century, forthcoming in the book Women at Work in Italy (1750-1950), Their Economic Thought and Culture, edited by Manuela Mosca. We plan to expand this work with a comparative European perspective, and together with Edoardo Rappa, we are also expanding the work to the post-WW2 period.
Another work related to gender inequalities is the estimation of the share of female entrepreneurs during the long 20th-century, a joint project with Stefania Licini which resulted in surprising results - a stability of the presence of businesswomen, despite the impressive changes in the economic, social and political environment faced by Italian women.
Thanks to the cooperative project led by Manuela Mosca, I am also interested in the economic thought of Italian women, and I am currently working on the works of Gina Lombroso.

An interesting fact with economic inequality in 19th and 20th century Italy, is that the issue was already a heated topic at the times. While scholarly work by authors such as Corrado Gini and his students and colleagues provided me with the 'primary sources' for some of my work, I have become interested in the intellectual history of inequality and its measurement. A first survey on measuring inequality in Italy from the late-19th to the interwar period was published in a special issue of History of Political Economy, together with other paper presented at the Measuring Matters conference, organised by Pedro R. Pinto and Nima Paidipaty. In my paper for Il Pensiero Economico Italiano, I expanded the discussion on the interwar decades. In the future, I plan to expand this work discussing "inequality knowledge" in Italy in the 1945-75 period.
In my dissertation I expanded this work in what is now the paper 'Non-competing social groups'? The long debate on social mobility in Italy (c. 1890-1960), which surveys how economists and other social scientists have been discussing social mobility and related concepts, such as the role of inheritance and inequality of opportunity, in 19th and 20th century, and how this eventually influenced policy (most notably taxation).
On these lines, I have submitted a paper on the contribution by Maffeo Pantaleoni on the issue of inequality of opportunity (or "starting points"), placed within the broader debate on inequality in early 20th-century Europe; my next intended steps are a history of inequality knowledge in the post-1945 period, and also a wider investigation of the 19th-century debate across Italy and Germany.

The effect of the Great War on Italian income distribution, (Livi 1924)

...Hey, Sir: you have to pay the bill! (Scalarini 1919)

A special episode in this intellectual debate is the "quasi-abolition" of inheritance tax (1923) - among the most iconomic reforms of the so-called "laissez-faire" period of the fascist period. This issue first attracted my interest when studying inequality in fascist Italy during the MPhil; after examining its "intellectual" history in the aforementioned works, but it led me to study the political history of taxation in post-WWI and interwar Italy.
First, I worked on the political history of the abolition of inheritance tax, thanks to the Istituto Italiano di Studi Storici: the result first came out as chapter (in Italian), in which I discuss mostly the newspapers coverage of the issue, and then into a LEM WP. Together with Bruno Settis, we then tried to analyse the parallel debates on labour relations and fiscal reforms in the troubled post-WWI period - the so-called "crisis of Liberal Italy" - in a paper for Studi Storici. I am currently working, together to Fernando Salsano, to the taxation on business incomes throughouth the whole Fascist period.

A related project, in which we use inheritance tax data to estimate wealth distribution, but also discuss its composition across Italian provinces from 1862 to the Great War, is the one with Salvatore Morelli, resulting in a paper on Review of Income and Wealth.
Thanks to a generous grant awarded by the Italian Science Fund (FIS), from September 2026 I will be the Principal Investigator of a 5-year project entitled "Welnlt - Wealth and Inheritance in Modern Italian History (1815-2015)". Based on the methodologies tested in the ROIW paper, I will lead a large-scale digitisation of inheritance declarations, to bridge the gap in our knowledge on wealth concentration in Modern Italy, but also investigate its composition, gender gaps, intergenerational transmission, and more. Stay tuned!

Alongside my focus on inequality and taxation, I am increasingly working on different aspects of the economic history of Italy in the Fascist period. First, I had the chance to work on a survey, covering the cliometric literature of the last decades, as a result of a Workshop I co-organised with Marco Molteni at Pembroke College in 2018; the Workshop also led to the two special issues of the Rivista di storia economica, edited together with Brian A'Hearn.
More recently, I wrote a second survey for Studi storici, this time with the effort of linking evolutions in quantitative economic history with the broader historical debates of the topic, which hopefully will be out soon in an Italian history journal.
When working at the Historical Household Budgets (HHB) Project, I started the project "Madly Poor", in which I am assembling a novel household-level database based to investigate whether poverty and insufficient welfare provision can explain the increase in confinements in Italian mental asylums between 1925 and 1941.
Together with Valerio Torreggiani, we would like to analyse in detail the impact of Fascist economic policies on the heterogeneous Italian middle classes.
Together with Alessandro Nuvolari and Caterina Sganga, I also explored the evolution of Italian intellectual property rights in this period, trying to discuss it within the broader issues of autarkic policies and their short and long-term impact on the Italian economy. This is an area in which I hope to combine the sources I have worked on for distributive reasons, in cooperative projects with colleagues working with different approaches.
With Bruno Settis, we also authored an essay on whether Fascist economic policies from 1922 to 1934 can be seen a as instrumental for future imperialistic strategies, which was published as a chapter in an edited volume by Fondazione Gramsci.

With Nicola Amendola and Giovanni Vecchi (Tor Vergata), we have been working for few years on the historial applications of the Human Development Index (HDI), that was the topic on which they supervised my MSc thesis.
We first co-authored a chapter in Giovanni's latest book for Oxford University Press, and then wrote a more advanced paper for the European Review of Economic History; due to the debate on Leandro Prados de la Escosura's book on this topic, we had the chance to also write a shorter note for the Rivista di storia economica/Italian Review of Economic History.