Editing Gini coefficient (section)

== Gini coefficients for pre-modern societies ==
In recent decades, researchers have attempted to estimate Gini coefficients for pre-20th century societies. In the absence of household income surveys and income taxes, scholars have relied on proxy variables. These include wealth taxes in medieval European city states, patterns of landownership in [[Roman Egypt]], variation of the size of houses in societies from ancient Greece to Aztec Mexico, and inheritance and dowries in Babylonian society. Other data does not directly document variations in wealth or income but are known to reflect inequality, such as the ratio of rents to wages or of labor to capital.<ref>{{cite book|author=[[Walter Scheidel]]|title=The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century|publisher=Princeton University Press|date=2017|isbn=978-0-691-16502-8|pages=15–16}}</ref>