This paper proposes three tasks. It briefly delineates the character of the civilizing mission and the interests it served, especially the colonization of Asia and Africa. In addition, the claims of the civilizing mission and the neoclassical theory of trade are tested empirically by comparing...

A review of the literature on historical comparisons of levels of development suggests that disparities between now and advanced and lagging countries around 1760 were most likely quite small and, if extreme observations at both ends are excluded, probably nonexistent. When purchasing power...

This paper works out some of the basic properties of an economy where energy is the driving force behind all economic activities. The economy now consists of streams of energy conversions that direct energy to the production of goods and services. The focus on energy generates a variety of...

The pursuit of economic growth is at the top of every nation's policy agenda at the end of the 20th century. This authoritative and comprehensive book goes beyond the narrowly-based convergence model of economic growth by considering global, national and regional patterns of growth from a...

This article critiques W. Arthur Lewis’s economic explanation of the division of the world into industrial and agricultural countries. His claim that industrialization in the tropics was held back by small markets and adverse factoral terms of trade is flawed and lacks empirical support....

Constant returns to scale (CRS) is one of the corner-stones of the competitive general equilibrium paradigm of neoclassical economics. This note argues that the equilibrium solutions of this paradigm are not compatible with CRS. CRS implies that all producers (whatever their scale of production)...

This paper presents theory and evidence to show that imperialism was a major factor impeding the spread of the industrial revolution during the century ending in the 1950s. Two empirical results stand out. First, analysis of historical evidence shows that most sovereign countries were...

This paper presents a schematic history of the global economy since 1800. The economic and political logic of global capitalism in this period is defined by its ability to derive a growing share of its energy from fossil fuels. The explosive growth of this period, the dominance of capital, the...

This paper seeks to explain Japan's competitiveness in terms of the character of her work-ethos formed in the Tokugawa era. Drawing on writings of European visitors to Japan from the 17th to 19th centuries, Japan's work-ethos is delineated in terms of a schema set out in the author's earlier work.

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 Eurocentric claims regarding Western Europe’s early economic lead. The Eurocentric...