Record Details

Global Disparities Since 1800: Trends and Regional Patterns

Journal of World-Systems Research

View Archive Info
 
 
Field Value
 
Title Global Disparities Since 1800: Trends and Regional Patterns
 
Creator Alam, M. Shahid
 
Description This paper reviews the growing body of evidence on the relative economic standing of different regions of the world in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In general, it does not find support for Euro-centric claims regarding Western Europes early economic lead. The Eurocentric claims are based primarily on estimates of per capita income, which are plagued by conceptual problems, make demands on historical data that are generally unavailable, and use questionable assumptions to reconstruct early per capita income. A careful examination of these conjectural estimates of per capita income, however, does not support claims that Western Europe had a substantial lead over the rest of the world at the beginning of the nineteenth century. An examination of several alternative indices of living standards in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuriessuch as real wages, labor productivity in agriculture, and urbanizationalso fails to confirm claims of European superiority. In addition, this paper examines the progress of global disparitiesincluding the presence of regional patternsusing estimates of per capita income.
 
Publisher University Library System, University of Pittsburgh
 
Date 2006-02-26
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
—
 
Format application/pdf
 
Identifier http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/381
10.5195/jwsr.2006.381
 
Source Journal of World-Systems Research; Volume 12, Issue 1, 2006; 37-59
1076-156X
 
Language eng
 
Relation http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/381/393
 
Rights Copyright (c) 2015 M. Shahid Alam
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0