This paper assesses claims that, prior to the 19th century, around 90% of the human
population lived in extreme poverty (defined as the inability to access essential goods), and …

This paper surveys the experience of economic growth in the 20th century with a focus on
technological change at the frontier together with issues related to success and failure in …

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 …

Estimates of historical workers' annual incomes suffer from the fundamental problem that
they are inferred from day wage rates without knowing how many days of work day …

This paper presents two wage-series for unskilled English women workers 1260–1850, one
based on daily wages and one on the daily remuneration implied in annual contracts. The …

The prevailing explanation for why the industrial revolution occurred first in Britain during the
last quarter of the eighteenth century is Allen's 'high wage economy'view, which claims that …

The origins of the Italian North-South divide have always been controversial. We fill this gap
by estimating a new dataset of real wages (Allen 2001; Allen et al. 2011) from Unification …

Existing series suggest wages in London were higher than in other European cities from
1650 to 1800. This article presents new evidence from the construction sites that supplied …

The role of slavery in driving Britain's economic development is often debated, but seldom
given a central place. In their remarkable new book, Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson 'follow the …

This article measures the size and incomes of six major social classes across the industrial
revolution using social tables for England and Wales in 1688, 1759, 1798, 1846, and 1867 …