This article traces trends of income inequality in Mexico City from 1770 to 1930 by measuring the gaps between urban real estate rents and unskilled wages. The article presents the first long-term series of real estate values and rental income for Mexico. One series summarizes the price of an apartment in tenement housing (the prevalent type of popular housing in Mexico), while the other relies on newspaper ads, notarial records, and other sources to estimate property values and rental yield (rental revenue relative to property values). From these wage and rental income series, we calculate rental–wage ratios that are broadly representative of the income gaps between the wealthy and unskilled workers. We find that, at the end of the eighteenth century, inequality moderately increased, followed by a more egalitarian period in the first half of the nineteenth century, and a ballooning in the last quarter of the nineteenth century that persisted into 1930. While inequality receded after the insurrection in the 1810s, it remained high after the Mexican Revolution. We hypothesize that inequality was sensitive to economic growth, and that generalized violence did not universally temper inequality.

中文翻译：

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墨西哥城的租金与工资不平等，1770 年至 1930 年

本文通过衡量城市房地产租金和非技术工资之间的差距，追踪了 1770 年至 1930 年间墨西哥城收入不平等的趋势。本文介绍了墨西哥房地产价值和租金收入的第一个长期系列。一个系列总结了经济公寓（墨西哥流行的流行住房类型）中公寓的价格，而另一个系列则依靠报纸广告、公证记录和其他来源来估计房产价值和租金收益率（相对于房产价值的租金收入） ）。从这些工资和租金收入序列中，我们计算出租金-工资比率，该比率广泛代表了富裕工人和非技术工人之间的收入差距。我们发现，在 18 世纪末，不平等现象略有增加，随后在 19 世纪上半叶进入了更加平等的时期，并在 19 世纪最后 25 年急剧膨胀，一直持续到 1930 年。 1810年代起义之后，墨西哥革命后这一数字仍然很高。我们假设不平等对经济增长很敏感，而普遍的暴力并没有普遍缓解不平等。