Sumptuary Laws in Preindustrial Europe Country and City Level Data

Country and city-level sumptuary laws from preindustrial Europe, compiled to analyze the political economy of status competition. It was created by Desiree Desierto to test a model predicting a non-monotonic relationship between income and sumptuary legislation. The dataset's row and column counts are not specified.

Use Cases

• Test the model's prediction of a non-monotonic effect of income on sumptuary legislation using country-level data.
• Analyze the relationship between institutional extractiveness and the enactment of sumptuary laws across different states.
• Compare the frequency and characteristics of sumptuary laws at the country level versus the city level.

Strengths

• Dataset is based on original research introducing a formal model of status competition and sumptuary laws.
• Includes data at both the country and city levels for comparative analysis.
• Last updated in February 2026, indicating recent maintenance.

Limitations

• The sample size, number of rows, and specific columns are unknown, limiting reproducibility and analytical scope.
• Data coverage is restricted to preindustrial Europe, which may limit generalizability to other regions or time periods.
• The raw description does not specify the temporal range covered by the laws, making longitudinal analysis difficult.

Provenance

Source

Desiree Desierto, ICPSR Harvested Dataverse.

Collection Method

Compiled as a new dataset of country and city-level sumptuary laws for academic research.

Time Range

Preindustrial Europe (specific years not provided).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-02-23.

Geography

Preindustrial Europe (specific countries/cities not detailed).