Baten, Joerg, Ma, Debin, Morgan, Stephen and Wang, Qing (2010) Evolution of living standards and human capital in China in the 18-20th centuries: Evidences from real wages, age-heaping, and anthropometrics. Explorations in economic history, 47 (3). pp. 347-359. ISSN 0014-4983
Abstract
This article mobilizes and integrates both existing and new time series data on real wages, physical heights and age-heaping to examine the long-term trend of living standards and human capital for China during the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. Our findings confirm the existence of a substantial gap in living standards between China and North-western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They also reveal a sustained decline in living standards and human capital at least in South China from the mid-nineteenth century followed by a recovery in the early twentieth century. However, comparative examination of age-heaping data shows that the level of Chinese human capital was relatively high by world standard during this period. We make a preliminary exploration of the historical implication of our findings.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescriptio... |
| Additional Information: | © 2010 Elsevier Inc. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | ISI, China; Standard of living; Human capital; Real wages; Height; Numeracy |
| Library of Congress subject classification: | D History General and Old World > DS Asia |
| Sets: | Departments > Economic History |
| Rights: | http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/rights/LSERO.htm |
| Identification Number: | UT ISI:000277887100008 |
| URL: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/28525/ |
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