Wages, prices, and living standards in China, 1738–1925: in comparison with Europe, Japan, and India

Allen, Robert C.; Bassino, Jean Pascal; Ma, Debin; Moll-Murata, Christine; Zanden, Jan Luiten van

doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.2010.00515.x

Cited by 336 publications

(120 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…20 We assume that consumption of meat in Europe was low albeit higher than in Asia (Bassino and Ma 2005;Allen et al 2007). of this factor and not the opposite. According to Bulmer-Thomas (1994), there was «a traditional labour shortage, from which many colonial activities had suffered» (Bulmer-Thomas 1994, p. 30) 21 .…”

Section: Nominal and Real Wagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Colonial Origins of Inequality in Hispanic America? Some Reflections Based on New Empirical Evidence

González

Montero²

2010

RHE / JILAEH

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This paper attempts to contribute to the ongoing debate on the historical roots of the high economic inequality of contemporary Iberian America. Our approach, which is basically empirical, departs from the mainstream scholarship. We show new data on wages and heights in several viceroyalties that (1) suggest relatively medium-to-high levels of material welfare among the commoners in Bourbon Hispanic America; and (2) allow us to build indexes of economic inequality. An international comparison of those indexes casts some doubts on the widely accepted view that Viceroyal America's economy was exclusively based on extremely unequal or extractive Keywords: anthropometrics, colonialism, inequality, wages, Hispanic American economic history RESUMENEste trabajo pretende contribuir al debate sobre las causas histó ricas de la alta desigualdad econó mica en la Iberoamérica contemporá nea y lo hace en forma bá sicamente empírica, lo que es bastante inusual. En él se muestran nuevos datos sobre salarios y estaturas de varios virreinatos que: (1) sugieren niveles de bienestar material relativamente medios o altos para grupos no privilegiados de la Hispanoamérica borbó nica; y (2) permiten la construcció n de índices de desigualdad econó mica. La comparació n internacional de esos índices arroja dudas sobre la verosimilitud del ampliamente extendido supuesto de que la economía de la América españ ola se basada exclusivamente en instituciones extremadamente desiguales o extractivas, que ha sido popularizada por los influyentes trabajos de Engerman y Sokoloff y Acemoglu et al.

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Section: Nominal and Real Wagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Colonial Origins of Inequality in Hispanic America? Some Reflections Based on New Empirical Evidence

González

Montero²

2010

RHE / JILAEH

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“…33 Our approach with respect to these political institutions of the late Song largely follows the well-known Naito thesis expounded by the Japanese scholar NAITŌ Konan, summarized in Hisayuki Miyakawa 1955. 34 Debin Ma (2011) traces the long history of Chinese unification.…”

Section: Demographymentioning

confidence: 99%

From Divergence to Convergence: Reevaluating the History Behind China's Economic Boom

Brandt

Rawski

2014

Journal of Economic Literature

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233

122

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China's long-term economic dynamics pose a formidable challenge to economic historians. The Qing Empire , the world's largest national economy prior to the 19th century, experienced a tripling of population during the 17th and 18th centuries with no signs of diminishing per capita income. In some regions, the standard of living may have matched levels recorded in advanced regions of Western Europe.However, with the Industrial Revolution a vast gap emerged between newly rich industrial nations and China's lagging economy. Only with an unprecedented growth spurt beginning in the late 1970s has the gap separating China from the global leaders been substantially diminished, and China regained its former standing among the world's largest economies. This essay develops an integrated framework for understanding this entire history, including both the long period of divergence and the more recent convergent trend. The analysis sets out to explain how deeply embedded political and economic institutions that had contributed to a long process of extensive growth subsequently prevented China from capturing the benefits associated with new technologies and information arising from the Industrial Revolution. During the 20th century, the gradual erosion of these historic constraints and of new obstacles created by socialist planning eventually opened the door to China's current boom. Our analysis links China's recent economic development to important elements of its past, while using the success of the last three decades to provide fresh perspectives on the critical obstacles undermining earlier modernization efforts, and their removal over the last century and a half.

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“…From the late eighteenth century, it becomes possible to calculate the real consumption wage for China, and Allen et al (2005) are able to show that the comparative Anglo-Chinese real consumption wage at this time was very close to the comparative Anglo-Chinese grain wage. Furthermore, the Anglo-Indian grain wage at this time was around the same magnitude, i.e.…”

Section: Wages Population and Human Capital: Northwest European Excementioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Developments in the Theory of Very Long Run Growth: A Historical Appraisal

Broadberry

2012

Jahrbuch Für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook

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This paper offers a historical appraisal of recent developments in the theory of very long run growth, focusing on three main areas: (1) linkages between wages, population and human capital (2) interactions between institutions, markets and technology and (3) sustaining the process of economic growth once it has started. Historians as well as economists have recently begun to break away from the traditional practice of using different methods to analyse the world before and after the industrial revolution. However, tensions remain between the theoretical and historical literatures, particularly over the unit of analysis (the world or particular countries) and the role of historical contingency.I thank Nick Crafts, Oded Galor, Sayantan Ghosal, Omer Moav, Joel Mokyr, Eugenio Proto, Joachim Voth and participants in conference or seminar presentations at Barcelona, Brunel, Florence, Glasgow, Helsinki and Royal Holloway for helpful comments and discussions. I am grateful to Paolo Malanima for making available unpublished data.

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Wages, prices, and living standards in China, 1738–1925: in comparison with Europe, Japan, and India

Cited by 336 publications

References 27 publications

Colonial Origins of Inequality in Hispanic America? Some Reflections Based on New Empirical Evidence

Colonial Origins of Inequality in Hispanic America? Some Reflections Based on New Empirical Evidence

From Divergence to Convergence: Reevaluating the History Behind China's Economic Boom

Recent Developments in the Theory of Very Long Run Growth: A Historical Appraisal

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