Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP14407
Authors: Mark Koyama; Desiree Desierto
Abstract: Sumptuary laws that regulated clothing based on social status were an important part of the political economy of premodern states. We introduce a model that rationalizes the use of sumptuary laws by elites to regulate status competition from below. Our model predicts a non-monotonic effect of income – sumptuary legislation initially increases with income, but then falls as income increases further. The initial rise is more likely for states with less extractive institutions, whose ruling elites face greater status threat from the rising commercial class. We test these predictions using a newly collected dataset of country and city-level sumptuary laws.
Keywords: status competition; regulation; rent-seeking; political economy
JEL Codes: N4; N43; K42; Z10; D91
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Income (D31) | Enactment of sumptuary laws (Z18) |
| Income (intermediate levels) (D31) | Enactment of sumptuary laws (Z18) |
| Income (very high levels) (D31) | Enactment of sumptuary laws (Z18) |
| Plague outbreaks (N93) | Income (D31) |
| Enactment of sumptuary laws (Z18) | Status competition (L13) |
| Less extractive institutions (O17) | Status competition (L13) |