Living Standards In The Past

Author : Robert C. Allen
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191535737
Total Pages : 496 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Living Standards in the Past written by Robert C. Allen and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-03-24 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did Europe experience industrialisation and modern economic growth before China, India or Japan? This is one of the most fundamental questions in Economic History and one that has provoked intense debate. The main concern of this book is to determine when the gap in living standards between the East and the West emerged. The established view, dating back to Adam Smith, is that the gap emerged long before the Industrial Revolution, perhaps thousands of years ago. While this view has been called into question - and many of the explanations for it greatly undermined - the issue demands much more empirical research than has yet been undertaken. How did the standard of living in Europe and Asia compare in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? The present book proposes an answer by considering evidence of three sorts. The first is economic, focusing on income, food production, wages, and prices. The second is demographic, comparing heights, life expectancy and other demographic indicators. The third combines the economic and demographic by investigating the demographic vulnerability to short-term economic stress. The contributions show the highly complex and diverse pattern of the standard of living in the pre-industrial period. The general picture emerging is not one of a great divergence between East and West, but instead one of considerable similarities. These similarities not only pertain to economic aspects of standard of living but also to demography and the sensitivity to economic fluctuations. In addition to these similarities, there were also pronounced regional differences within the East and within the West - regional differences that in many cases were larger than the average differences between Europe and Asia. This clearly highlights the importance of analysing several dimensions of the standard of living, as well as the danger of neglecting regional, social, and household specific differences when assessing the level of well-being in the past.

Author : Moramay López-Alonso
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804782857
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.52/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Measuring Up written by Moramay López-Alonso and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-05 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Measuring Up traces the high levels of poverty and inequality that Mexico faced in the mid-twentieth century. Using newly developed multidisciplinary techniques, the book provides a perspective on living standards in Mexico prior to the first measurement of income distribution in 1957. By offering an account of material living conditions and their repercussions on biological standards of living between 1850 and 1950, it sheds new light on the life of the marginalized during this period. Measuring Up shows that new methodologies allow us to examine the history of individuals who were not integrated into the formal economy. Using anthropometric history techniques, the book assesses how a large portion of the population was affected by piecemeal policies and flaws in the process of economic modernization and growth. It contributes to our understanding of the origins of poverty and inequality, and conveys a much-needed, long-term perspective on the living conditions of the Mexican working classes.

Author : Robert J. Gordon
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400888956
Total Pages : 785 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Rise and Fall of American Growth written by Robert J. Gordon and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 785 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How America's high standard of living came to be and why future growth is under threat In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, motor vehicles, air travel, and television transformed households and workplaces. But has that era of unprecedented growth come to an end? Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis, The Rise and Fall of American Growth challenges the view that economic growth will continue unabated, and demonstrates that the life-altering scale of innovations between 1870 and 1970 cannot be repeated. Gordon contends that the nation's productivity growth will be further held back by the headwinds of rising inequality, stagnating education, an aging population, and the rising debt of college students and the federal government, and that we must find new solutions. A critical voice in the most pressing debates of our time, The Rise and Fall of American Growth is at once a tribute to a century of radical change and a harbinger of tougher times to come.

Author : Ricardo Donato Salvatore
Publisher : David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
ISBN 13 : 9780674055858
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Living Standards in Latin American History written by Ricardo Donato Salvatore and published by David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The recent work has focused on physical welfare, often referred to as “biological” well-being.

Author : Robert Allen
Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN 13 : 0199280681
Total Pages : 495 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Living Standards in the Past written by Robert Allen and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2005-03-24 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did Europe experience industrialisation and modern economic growth before China, India or Japan? This is one of the most fundamental questions in Economic History and one that has provoked intense debate. The main concern of this book is to determine when the gap in living standards between the East and the West emerged. The established view, dating back to Adam Smith, is that the gap emerged long before the Industrial Revolution, perhaps thousands of years ago. While this viewhas been called into question - and many of the explanations for it greatly undermined - the issue demands much more empirical research than has yet been undertaken. How did the standard of living in Europe and Asia compare in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? The present book proposes ananswer by considering evidence of three sorts. The first is economic, focusing on income, food production, wages, and prices. The second is demographic, comparing heights, life expectancy and other demographic indicators. The third combines the economic and demographic by investigating the demographic vulnerability to short-term economic stress.The contributions show the highly complex and diverse pattern of the standard of living in the pre-industrial period. The general picture emerging is not one of a great divergence between East and West, but instead one of considerable similarities. These similarities not only pertain to economic aspects of standard of living but also to demography and the sensitivity to economic fluctuations. In addition to these similarities, there were also pronounced regional differences within the East andwithin the West - regional differences that in many cases were larger than the average differences between Europe and Asia. This clearly highlights the importance of analysing several dimensions of the standard of living, as well as the danger of neglecting regional, social, and household specificdifferences when assessing the level of well-being in the past.

Author : Klas Rönnbäck
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317222164
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Labour and Living Standards in Pre-Colonial West Africa written by Klas Rönnbäck and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sub-Saharan Africa is the poorest region in the world. But its current status has skewed our understanding of the economy before colonization. Rönnbäck reconstructs the living standards of the population at a time when the Atlantic slave trade brought money and men into the area, enriching our understanding of West African economic development.

Author : Christopher Dyer
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521272155
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.57/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages written by Christopher Dyer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989-03-09 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1200 and 1520 medieval English society went through a series of upheavals: this was an age of war, pestilence and rebellion. This book explores the realities of life of the people who lived through those stirring times. It looks in turn at aristocrats, peasants, townsmen, wage-earners and paupers, and examines how they obtained their incomes and how they spent them. This revised edition (1998) includes a substantial new concluding chapter and an updated bibliography.

Author : OECD
Publisher : OECD Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9264214267
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How Was Life? Global Well-being since 1820 written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2014-10-02 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the first systematic evidence on long-term trends in global well-being since 1820 for 25 major countries and 8 regions in the world covering more than 80% of the world’s population.

Author : Moses I. Finley
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 9780520024366
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Ancient Economy written by Moses I. Finley and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1973 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Ancient Economy holds pride of place among the handful of genuinely influential works of ancient history. This is Finley at the height of his remarkable powers and in his finest role as historical iconoclast and intellectual provocateur. It should be required reading for every student of pre-modern modes of production, exchange, and consumption."--Josiah Ober, author of Political Dissent in Democratic Athens

Author : Gregory Clark
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400827817
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Farewell to Alms written by Gregory Clark and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2008-12-29 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are some parts of the world so rich and others so poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution--and the unprecedented economic growth that came with it--occur in eighteenth-century England, and not at some other time, or in some other place? Why didn't industrialization make the whole world rich--and why did it make large parts of the world even poorer? In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark tackles these profound questions and suggests a new and provocative way in which culture--not exploitation, geography, or resources--explains the wealth, and the poverty, of nations. Countering the prevailing theory that the Industrial Revolution was sparked by the sudden development of stable political, legal, and economic institutions in seventeenth-century Europe, Clark shows that such institutions existed long before industrialization. He argues instead that these institutions gradually led to deep cultural changes by encouraging people to abandon hunter-gatherer instincts-violence, impatience, and economy of effort-and adopt economic habits-hard work, rationality, and education. The problem, Clark says, is that only societies that have long histories of settlement and security seem to develop the cultural characteristics and effective workforces that enable economic growth. For the many societies that have not enjoyed long periods of stability, industrialization has not been a blessing. Clark also dissects the notion, championed by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel, that natural endowments such as geography account for differences in the wealth of nations. A brilliant and sobering challenge to the idea that poor societies can be economically developed through outside intervention, A Farewell to Alms may change the way global economic history is understood.