Allen, Robert C., Bassino, Jean-Pascal, Ma, Debin 
ORCID: 0000-0002-9604-8724, Moll-Murata, Christine and van Zanden, Jan Luiten
(2011)
Wages, prices, and living standards in China, 1738-1925: in comparison with Europe, Japan, and India.
Economic History Review, 64 (s1).
pp. 8-38.
ISSN 0013-0117
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Abstract
This article develops data on the history of wages and prices in Beijing, Canton, and Suzhou/Shanghai in China from the eighteenth century to the twentieth, and compares them with leading cities in Europe, Japan, and India in terms of nominal wages, the cost of living, and the standard of living. In the eighteenth century, the real income of building workers in Asia was similar to that of workers in the backward parts of Europe but far behind that in the leading economies in north-western Europe. Real wages stagnated in China in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and rose slowly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth, with little cumulative change for 200 years. The income disparities of the early twentieth century were due to long-run stagnation in China combined with industrialization in Japan and Europe.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(IS... |
| Additional Information: | © 2010 The Authors. The Economic History Review published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Economic History Society |
| Divisions: | Economic History |
| Subjects: | D History General and Old World > DS Asia H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions |
| Date Deposited: | 10 Feb 2011 10:14 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Dec 2024 23:52 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/32403 |
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