Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Before the Great Divergence? Comparing the Yangzi Delta and the Netherlands at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century

Contents:

Author Info

  • Li, Bozhong
  • van Zanden, Jan Luiten

Abstract

The debate about the long-term economic development of China compared with Europe has taken a new turn with the publication of Kenneth Pomeranz’ book on ‘The Great Divergence’, in which he maintains that before the Industrial Revolution the most advanced parts of China (in particular the Yangzi Delta) was in terms of real incomes on par with the richest regions in Western Europe (Great Britain, the Netherlands). His tentative results were very different from the estimates produced by Maddison (2001) who concluded that there was already a large gap in real per capita GDP between these two extreme parts of Eurasia. Using the method of historical national accounting, this paper tests these ideas on the basis of a detailed comparison of the structure and level of GDP in part of the Yangzi Delta and the Netherlands in the 1820s, also taking into account differences of purchasing power of the two currencies involved. The results are that Dutch GDP per capita was already almost twice the level in the Yangzi Delta, which is more or less consistent with Maddison’s point of view. The level of agricultural productivity in this part of China was, however, at about the same level as in the Netherlands (and England), but large productivity gaps existed in industry and services (with the exception of government services). We also attempt to explain the patterns found, and conclude that differences in factor costs may have been behind the observed differences in labour productivity.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP8023.asp
Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 8023.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Sep 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8023

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Centre for Economic Policy Research, 77 Bastwick Street, London EC1V 3PZ
Phone: 44 - 20 - 7183 8801
Fax: 44 - 20 - 7183 8820

Order Information:
Email:

Related research

Keywords: economic development; labour productivity; real incomes;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Astrid Kander & Paul Warde, 2011. "Energy availability from livestock and agricultural productivity in Europe, 1815–1913: a new comparison," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 64(1), pages 1-29, February.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Branko Milanovic, 2012. "Global Inequality: From Class to Location, from Proletarians to Migrants," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 3(2), pages 125-134, 05.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8023

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.