An econometric model of economic development is estimated with data from leading European countries between 1300 and 1800. The model explores the impact of population, enclosure, empire, representative government, technology, and literacy on urbanization, agricultural productivity,...

Jane Humphries and Benjamin Schneider have assembled several large databases of spinners’ production and wages that they believe disprove my view that high wages led to mechanization in eighteenth‐century England. This reply examines their data and shows that they have little value for...

World Bank estimates put absolute poverty in Asia and Africa at 50–60% of the population in 1980 and at negligible levels in the developed world. This review investigates whether Asia was always so poor, as well as the history of poverty in today's rich countries. Poverty measurement...

The productivity of agriculture in England and the Yangtze Delta are compared c.1620 and c.1820 in order to gauge the performance of the most advanced part of China vis-à-vis its counterpart in Europe. The value of real output is compared using purchasing power parity exchange rates. Output per...