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来源类型 | Discussion paper |
规范类型 | 论文 |
来源ID | DP8023 |
DP8023 Before the Great Divergence? Comparing the Yangzi Delta and the Netherlands at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century | |
Jan Luiten van Zanden; Bozhong Li | |
发表日期 | 2010-09-23 |
出版年 | 2010 |
语种 | 英语 |
摘要 | The debate about the long-term economic development of China compared with Europe has taken a new turn with the publication of Kenneth Pomeranz? book on ?The Great Divergence?, in which he maintains that before the Industrial Revolution the most advanced parts of China (in particular the Yangzi Delta) was in terms of real incomes on par with the richest regions in Western Europe (Great Britain, the Netherlands). His tentative results were very different from the estimates produced by Maddison (2001) who concluded that there was already a large gap in real per capita GDP between these two extreme parts of Eurasia. Using the method of historical national accounting, this paper tests these ideas on the basis of a detailed comparison of the structure and level of GDP in part of the Yangzi Delta and the Netherlands in the 1820s, also taking into account differences of purchasing power of the two currencies involved. The results are that Dutch GDP per capita was already almost twice the level in the Yangzi Delta, which is more or less consistent with Maddison?s point of view. The level of agricultural productivity in this part of China was, however, at about the same level as in the Netherlands (and England), but large productivity gaps existed in industry and services (with the exception of government services). We also attempt to explain the patterns found, and conclude that differences in factor costs may have been behind the observed differences in labour productivity. |
主题 | International Macroeconomics |
关键词 | Economic development Real incomes Labour productivity |
URL | https://cepr.org/publications/dp8023 |
来源智库 | Centre for Economic Policy Research (United Kingdom) |
资源类型 | 智库出版物 |
条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/536860 |
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Jan Luiten van Zanden,Bozhong Li. DP8023 Before the Great Divergence? Comparing the Yangzi Delta and the Netherlands at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century. 2010. |
条目包含的文件 | 条目无相关文件。 |
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