Preferences of the poor: Market participation and asset management of poor households in sixteenth-century Holland

Our article aims to detect differences in behaviour towards the capital and land market of households of different sizes and levels of income. Participation in markets for real estate, capital, and ships was considerable, not only among middling and elite groups but also among the poor. Large households were most active in markets, incurring significantly greater debt. Poor households with a low supply of labour were relatively active, purchasing houses and ships, and incurring debts, possibly in order to cope with a lack of parental support. Middling-group households with a low supply of labour primarily sold houses and invested in the capital market, adjusting capital assets to declining labour supply at the end of their life cycle, thus creating cash rents to be able to survive old age.