Relocation of the selling of Australia’s wool clip from London to cities in Australia in the late nineteenth century led to the creation of wool selling industry associations, such as the Melbourne Woolbrokers Association (MWA). Highly successful in fostering competitive collaboration that...

In late 2007, the Chinese Communist Party's 17th Congress outlined a programme of eight key economic policies to address future economic development in China. These policies emphasized 'building a harmonious society' using a 'scientific approach'. The paper assesses whether these policies are...

Foreign influence on South China increasingly disrupted the economy from the late eighteenth century. Many scholars believe the standard of living fell, while others point to positive gains from increased integration with the world economy. The paper estimates the secular trend in the average...

Past studies of the Chinese Great Leap Forward famine focus on its causality or the economics effects, but few examine the welfare of the survivors. Thirty million people may have died. Human height, an indicator of nutrition, is used to examine the impact on the survivors of the famine who were...

Economic growth over the past three decades has greatly improved nutrition and the standard of living of the Chinese. Increasingly, though, the Chinese are becoming heavier. As many as a quarter of Chinese school-age urban boys are overweight or obese, yet a third of Chinese children remain...

Empirical tests of market integration are tests of price differences across locations with only tenuous reference to economic theory. We develop a simple model that illustrates the links between price convergence and the gains from trade, providing a theoretical rationale for empirical analysis....