Income Inequality in Ancient Empires: Replication Package

The emergence ofvast territorial empires is a recurring development in the history of humancivilization. Their ability to extract resources from their subjects, and toredistribute them, is also an ability to achieve higher levels of economicinequality. Here we explore for the first time how imperialstructures contributed to set the level of inequality in two ancient empires,the Roman Empire ca. 165 CE and the Chinese Han Empire ca. 2 CE. We find thatthe Han Empire was, overall, more unequal and extractive than the Roman Empire.Other empires, however, were even more extractive, as shown by a comparisonwith the Aztec Empire ca. 1492. We argue that higher inequality increased thepotential for political instability and the collapse of empires.