Today, the divergence between the 'West' and the 'Rest' is visibly unravelling, as economies in Asia, Latin America and even sub-Saharan Africa converge on the rich economies of Europe and North America. This phenomenon, which is set to define the twenty-first century, both economically and...

Modern economic growth, defined as a sustained rise in per capita income (Kuznets 1966C001-025), has created higher levels of prosperity for many more people on earth than was ever thought possible before it began. Moreover, it began not so very long ago, perhaps as late as the middle of the...

This paper provides the first quantitative assessment of Jamaican standards of living and income inequality around 1774. To this purpose we compute welfare ratios for a range of occupations and build a social table. We find that the slave colony had extremely high living costs, which rose...

Most analysts of the modern Latin American economy have held the pessimistic belief in historical persistence -- they believe that Latin America has always had very high levels of inequality, and that it's the Iberian colonists' fault. Thus, modern analysts see today a more unequal Latin America...

This paper provides the first quantitative assessment of Jamaican standards of living and income inequality around 1774. To this purpose we compute welfare ratios for a range of occupations and build a social table. We find that the slave colony had extremely high living costs, which rose...