IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mtl/montde/2003-19.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Explaining the Great Divergence: Medium and Message on the Eurasian Land Mass, 1700-1850

Author

Listed:
  • DUDLEY, Leonard

Abstract

Between 1700 and 1850, per-capita income doubled in Europe while falling in the rest of Eurasia. Neither geography nor economic institutions can explain this sudden divergence. Here the consequences of differences in communications technology are examined. For the first time, there appeared in Europe a combination of a standardized medium (national vernaculars with a phonetic alphabet) and a non-standardized message (competing religious, political and scientific ideas). The result was an unprecedented fall in the cost of combining ideas and burst of productivity-raising innovation. Elsewhere, decreasing standardization of the medium and increasing standardization of the message blocked innovation.

Suggested Citation

  • DUDLEY, Leonard, 2003. "Explaining the Great Divergence: Medium and Message on the Eurasian Land Mass, 1700-1850," Cahiers de recherche 2003-19, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    • Handle: RePEc:mtl:montde:2003-19
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/1866/506
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leonard Dudley, 2000. "The rationality of revolution," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 77-103, March.
    2. Perkins, Edwin J., 1981. "The Cost of Good Intentions: New York City and the Liberal Experiment. By Charles R. Morris. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1980. Pp. 256. $14.95," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(1), pages 250-250, March.
    3. Martin L. Weitzman, 1998. "Recombinant Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(2), pages 331-360.
    4. Holler, Manfred J. & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 1996. "The economics of standardization: Introduction and overview," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 177-182, September.
    5. JEAN-MICHEL Josselin & ALAIN Marciano, 1997. "The Paradox of Leviathan: How to Develop and Contain the Future European State?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 5-22, January.
    6. Deepak Lal, 2001. "Unintended Consequences: The Impact of Factor Endowments, Culture, and Politics on Long-Run Economic Performance," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262621541, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kunting Chen, 2012. "Analysis of the Great Divergence under a Unified Endogenous Growth Model," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 13(2), pages 317-353, November.
    2. Giuliani, Elisa & Martinelli, Arianna & Rabellotti, Roberta, 2016. "Is Co-Invention Expediting Technological Catch Up? A Study of Collaboration between Emerging Country Firms and EU Inventors," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 192-205.
    3. Ufuk Akcigit & Murat Celik & Daron Acemoglu, 2014. "Young, Restless and Creative: Openness to Disruption and Creative Innovations," 2014 Meeting Papers 377, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Davide Consoli & Pier Paolo Patrucco, 2011. "Complexity and the Coordination of Technological Knowledge: The Case of Innovation Platforms," Chapters, in: Handbook on the Economic Complexity of Technological Change, chapter 8 Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Orsatti, Gianluca & Pezzoni, Michele & Quatraro, Francesco, 2017. "Where Do Green Technologies Come From? Inventor Teams’ Recombinant Capabilities and the Creation of New Knowledge," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201711, University of Turin.
    6. Olsson, Ola, 2001. "Why Does Technology Advance in Cycles?," Working Papers in Economics 38, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    7. Mori, Tomoya & Sakaguchi, Shosei, 2018. "Collaborative knowledge creation: Evidence from Japanese patent data," MPRA Paper 88716, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Carayol, Nicolas & Dalle, Jean-Michel, 2007. "Sequential problem choice and the reward system in Open Science," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 167-191, June.
    9. Marcus Berliant & Masahisa Fujita, 2011. "The Dynamics of Knowledge Diversity and Economic Growth," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 77(4), pages 856-884, April.
    10. Aaltonen, Aleksi Ville & Seiler, Stephan, 2014. "Quantifying spillovers in open source content production: evidence from Wikipedia," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 60284, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Timo Boppart & Kevin E. Staub, 2012. "Online accessibility of academic articles and the diversity of economics," ECON - Working Papers 075, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    12. Michael Bar & Oksana Leukhina, 2010. "The role of mortality in the transmission of knowledge," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 291-321, December.
    13. Singh, Nirvikar, 2006. "Services-led industrialization in India: Assessment and lessons," MPRA Paper 1276, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2008. "Optimal diversity: Increasing returns versus recombinant innovation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(3-4), pages 565-580, December.
    15. Reinoud Joosten, 2011. "Social Dilemmas, Time Preferences and Technology Adoption in a Commons Problem," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2011-09, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    16. Amigues, Jean-Pierre & Favard, Pascal & Gaudet, Gerard & Moreaux, Michel, 1998. "On the Optimal Order of Natural Resource Use When the Capacity of the Inexhaustible Substitute Is Limited," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 153-170, May.
    17. Andreas Schäfer & Maik T. Schneider, 2010. "Endogenous Intellectual Property Rights and North-South Trade," DEGIT Conference Papers c015_058, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    18. Safarzynska, Karolina & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2011. "Beyond replicator dynamics: Innovation-selection dynamics and optimal diversity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(3), pages 229-245, May.
    19. Marchese, Carla & Privileggi, Fabio, 2014. "A Competitive Idea-Based Growth Model with Shrinking Workers' Income," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201415, University of Turin.
    20. Krafft Jackie & Quatraro Francesco & Colombelli Alessandra, 2011. "High Growth Firms and Technological Knowledge: Do gazelles follow exploration or exploitation strategies?," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis LEI & BRICK - Laboratory of Economics of Innovation "Franco Momigliano", Bureau of Research in Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge, Collegio 201114, University of Turin.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N1 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mtl:montde:2003-19. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sharon BREWER (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demtlca.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.