Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still the richest (2016)

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 95 posts

Re: The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still the richest (2016)

#51

Post by gmunu »

Not surprisingly, the qz.com article distorts the meaning of the original paper and looking at the comments, they seem to follow the false, but suggested interpretation of the paper that qz gives.

It's useful to note the title of the paper: What’s your (sur)name? Intergenerational mobility over six centuries. This paper is not tracking wealth, it's tracking income via tax records. It notes things like people who are lawyers or bankers now were more likely to share surnames with people in similar professions in the 15th century. It is not tracking inter-generation transfers of wealth.

In fact, qz even drops the most interesting conclusion in the article, which is their measurement of changing intergenerational income mobility overtime. They measure inelasticity at > .8 in Renaissance Florence and a generally static society until the industrial revolution, with inelasticity coming down starting in the 20th century.

The article isn't about secret trusts set up by the Medici, but the more prosaic fact that if you father and grandfather were lawyers, you're more likely to be one too. Still interesting, but it's not evidence that families were "able to maintain their wealth" through revolutions at all.

Re: The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still the richest (2016)

#52

Post by FooBarWidget »

randyrand wrote: post #50

This is hard to believe. Over 600 years, a family of 4 becomes a family of thousands. Take any reasonable sum of money and divide it by 20,000 and its not that big of a sum of money anymore.

I don't think money works that way? Think of the family wealth as starting capital that gives decendants better education, an environment that simulates growth, etc. They take a piece of the family wealth and grow it bigger through good jobs, investments, companies, etc.

Re: The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still the richest (2016)

#53

Post by cannonpr »

true_religion wrote: post #3

This only feels surprising to me because in England, aristocratic houses tend to last only 100-200 years before losing their name by being subsumed into another, renaming due to politics, or vanishing in some other way. The House of Windsor only formally dates back to 1910. However if you trace it via the Mountbatten line, it'll rate as being as old as 1567, since it comes from a branch of the House of Hesse-Darmstad…

Your comment about the Medici line confused me a bit since I believed them to have ended quite a while back, however there do appear to be two cadet lines still around. When do you generally consider a line over for the purposes of the study ?

Re: The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still the richest (2016)

#54

Post by cannonpr »

true_religion wrote: post #3

This only feels surprising to me because in England, aristocratic houses tend to last only 100-200 years before losing their name by being subsumed into another, renaming due to politics, or vanishing in some other way. The House of Windsor only formally dates back to 1910. However if you trace it via the Mountbatten line, it'll rate as being as old as 1567, since it comes from a branch of the House of Hesse-Darmstad…

Your comment about the Medici line confused me a bit since I believed them to have ended quite a while back, however there do appear to be two cadet lines still around. When do you generally consider a line over for the purposes of the study ?

Re: The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still the richest (2016)

#55

Post by [deleted] »

mjfl wrote: post #18

I don't understand this. Assuming no inbreeding, families that consistently have 2 kids roughly double in size every generation - a 600-year-old family would have 1 billion unique descendants by now. Of course, there is a ton of inbreeding - in the technical sense - but I still have a hard time imagining a 600 year continuous family line that isn't a pretty arbitrary chart of certain descendants here and there. It's…

[deleted]

Re: The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still the richest (2016)

#57

Post by MagnumOpus »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #8
caf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holding value in land typically means involvement in agriculture, though.

Yes, but agriculture became less a source of great wealth during the industrial revolution. Trade probably continued to be quite profitable, though.

Agriculture isn't the way to riches anymore, but holding all the former farmland is.

Say your ancestor Rich Grosvenor owned the village of Belgrave near Westminster Cathedral and the farmland around it - then just by holding on to it, watching it as it becomes prime urban real estate and living off the million-pound rents you and your children can't avoid becoming billionaires a dozen times over. Then you can proceed to buy and sell the British government and media at your pleasure, having been made a duke and a lord of the realm...

Re: The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still the richest (2016)

#58

Post by jstanley »

nugget wrote: post #30
wahern wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, several states have repealed the common law rule against perpetuities entirely. Long story short, rich people can create trusts that pay a steady income to their families for as long as they want, including for hundreds of years. There's no estate tax upon your death because the assets were already transferred. The assets aren't taxed on transfer, either, but only as they're paid out to the beneficiari…

It's become painful to me to listen to most well-intentioned folks debate estate taxes and wealth inequality. So few understand what wahern describes above. The whole debate is a school of red herrings. European tax law is even more of a mess than the US in this regard; even if some practices are eventually ended here, whether in 10 years or 100 years, I have little doubt they will continue on unabated most everywher…

> It's become painful to me to listen to most well-intentioned folks debate estate taxes and wealth inequality. So few understand what wahern describes above.

Can you talk us through what exactly it is that we misunderstand, and what the correction would be?

Re: The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still the richest (2016)

#59

Post by piaste »

valuearb wrote: post #38
forkandwait wrote: post #33

"the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" -- Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto.

To a man with a hammer, every problem is a nail. To a man with a hammer and sickle, every problem is a class struggle.

That is a brilliant aphorism. I shall make good use of it.

Re: The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still the richest (2016)

#60

Post by MagnumOpus »

sologoub wrote: post #47

From the original source: "Stated differently, being the descendants of the Bernardi family (at the 90th percentile of earnings distribution in 1427) instead of the Grasso family (10th percentile of the same distribution) would entail a 5% increase in earnings among current taxpayers (after adjusting for age and gender)." http://voxeu.org/article/what-s-your-surname-intergeneration... So 5% extra as the result of bei…

On the contrary, it is staggering that a result is still present after 30 generations of splitting the family wealth.

Even on the assumption that the rich only have 2-3 children, a billion-dollar inheritance should be diluted to nearly nothing after 15 generations. And with the 4-8 children that were usual back in the day, in less than 10 generations.

Having such a massive difference that it can be traced by very low-powered population statistics after 600 years means that the effect on having a head start in terms of wealth is enormous on your potential to stay wealthy.

Post reply on HN