[...]... did the standard of living in Europe and Asia compare in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? Grand issues like this have many dimensions, and all of them need to be investigated to establish sound conclusions 2 Conceptualizing and Measuring Standard of Living International comparisons of the standard of living raise three issues The first is regional diversity Both Europe and Asia contained leading... differences in farm organization (not similarities) that explain the high Asian standard of living Jamie Reis expands the definition of the standard of living beyond the consumption of goods and services to include literacy The ability to read and write increased dramatically in Europe between the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution When Gutenberg invented the moveable type in 1453, perhaps 10% of the European... vulnerability to short-term economic stress? 3 Economic Indicators of Living Standards The first part of the book is primarily concerned with economic indicators of well-being Kenneth Pomeranz's contribution extends his path-breaking book The Great Divergence (2000) by considering more information on relative living standards in Europe and Asia He argues that the Chinese consumed about 2,400 calories... important issue The contributions cover major Asian and European countries and regions presenting new evidence and interpretations not only on income, health, and education but also on the ability to overcome short-term economic stress In this way, we are able to provide a more substantial empirical foundation for debate on when the gap in living standards between the East and the West emerged 1 The Established... studied the history of real wages across Europe from the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century These comparisons show that living standards were high and at about the same level around 1500 in all the cities studied Thereafter, they diverged In the next three centuries, living standards remained high in the leading commercial cities of northwestern Europe while falling by a half in the rest of the continent... height? Do demographic indicators of wellbeing show similar patterns as economic ones? The third combines the economic and demographic indicators into the new concept of standard of living previously discussed: Did pre-industrial populations in Asia respond to economic fluctuations by changes in mortality and fertility similar to Europe? How did the well-being of the poorest members and the better-off compare... first is economic: There are many indicators of economic well-being including the history of income, food production, wages, and prices What do they tell us about the well-being in pre-industrial Europe and Asia? The second is demographic: Was Malthus right in claiming that mortality was high in most eighteenth-century populations due to population pressure on land? Did food shortage indirectly in uence... Britain They continued to be re-exported, however, to other parts of Europe and to Africa and the Americas The merchants engaged in these trades were well aware of the costs and prices of the goods they sold and observed that the cheapness of Indian cottons was a direct result of the lowness of Indian wages in comparison to those in England This observation underlay the pessimistic view of Asian living. .. any time by the inferior mandarins’, investment—hence, employment and output—will be less than they might be (1776/1937: 95) The proper function of the state, in Smith's view, was to establish clear and secure property rights, and the Chinese Empire failed that test Smith, thus, explained the low standard of living in China with the same theory that explained the high standard of living in Europe Malthus... of the modern Chinese, lived in the northern forests and subsisted on millet and barley Landes sees the Han in a Darwinian competition with the other peoples of East Asia The competitive advantage of the Han was early and universal marriage and maximal fertility The Han bred faster than other Asians and gradually pushed south, displacing their competitors and occupying all of China In this expansion, . alt="" Living Standards in the Past This page intentionally left blank Living Standards in the Past New Perspectives on Well-Being in Asia and Europe Edited by ROBERT C.ALLEN TOMMY BENGTSSON and MARTIN. stature, consumption, and wages are examined in terms of communities and individual households. Comparisons of living standards and well-being are made across social groups, countries, and continents Levin, and Peter H. Lindert 7 What Happened to the Standard of Living Before the Industrial Revolution? New Evidence from the Western Part of the Netherlands 173 Jan Luiten van Zanden 8 Economic