Household wealth, indebtedness, and economic growth in early modern England

Estimates of wealth are presented as recorded by over 18,000 probate inventory totals in five English counties for the two centuries after 1550. Real household wealth grew, almost without interruption, from the turn of the seventeenth century onwards. Using data from a sample of complete inventories for Cornwall and Kent, and inventories, accounts and wills for one Kent parish, total inventory wealth is related to material wealth, net wealth, indebtedness and real estate. Inventory totals reflect these other measures of wealth and so the implications of these trends for rates of economic growth and changes in income inequality are considered.