Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T04:25:33.405Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

16 - Living Standards, Inequality, and Human Development

from Part II - Factors Governing Differential Outcomes in the Global Economy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2021

Stephen Broadberry
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Kyoji Fukao
Affiliation:
Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo
Get access

Summary

During the last century and a half, average world income grew tenfold, the composition of output and relative factor returns shifted, and globalization occurred. Consumption per person has grown over time, but more slowly than GDP per capita, as the share of private consumption declined, although this was partly offset by the rising share of public consumption. Income inequality within countries fell from the early to the late twentieth century and has risen in recent decades. Living standards improved across the world, but the gap between the West and the Rest increased, and between-country inequality widened over time until the 1990s, when the trend reversed. Among world inhabitants, income distribution has followed a similar trend, with inequality increasing up to 1990 and declining in the twenty-first century. Impressive long-run gains in human development have taken place in the world without being interrupted by the economic slowdown and globalization backlash during 1914–50.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, R. C. (2001). ‘The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War’, Explorations in Economic History, 38(4), 411447.Google Scholar
Allen, R. C. (2007). ‘India in the Great Divergence’, in Hatton, T. J., O’Rourke, K. O., and Taylor, A. M. (eds.), The New Comparative Economic History: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey G. Williamson, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 932.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C. (2013). ‘Poverty Lines in History, Theory, and Current International Practice’, Discussion Paper 685, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.Google Scholar
Allen, R. C. (2014). ‘American Exceptionalism as a Problem in Global History’, Journal of Economic History, 74(2), 309350.Google Scholar
Allen, R. C., Bassino, J.-P., Ma, D., Moll-Murata, C., and van Zanden, J. L. (2011). ‘Wages, Prices, and Living Standards in China, 1739–1925: In Comparison with Europe, Japan, and India’, Economic History Review, 64(S1), 838.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alvaredo, F., Atkinson, A. B., Piketty, T., and Saez, E. (2013). ‘The Top 1 Percent in International and Historical Perspective’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27(3), 320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anand, S. and Sen, A. K. (2000). ‘The Income Component of the Human Development Index’, Journal of Human Development, 1, 83106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Astorga, P. (2017). ‘Real Wages and Skill Premiums in Latin America, 1900–2011’, Revista de Historia Económica/Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, 35(3), 319353.Google Scholar
Atkinson, A. B., Piketty, T., and Saez, E. (2011). ‘Top Incomes in the Long Run of History’, Journal of Economic Literature, 49(1), 371.Google Scholar
Bank of Japan. (1966). Meiji ikō honpō chuyō keizai tōkei, Tokyo: Bank of Japan.Google Scholar
Barro, R. J. and Ursúa, J. F. (2008). ‘Macroeconomic Crises since 1870’, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, spring, 255335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caruana-Galizia, P. (2015). ‘Strategic Colonies and Economic Development: Real Wage in Cyprus, Gibraltar, and Malta, 1836–1913’, Economic History Review, 68(4), 12501276.Google Scholar
Cha, M. S. (2014). Kiawa kijŏgŭi kiwŏn, Seoul: Haenam.Google Scholar
Cha, M. S. (2015). ‘Unskilled Wage Gaps within the Japanese Empire’, Economic History Review, 68(1), 2347.Google Scholar
Challú, A. and Gómez-Galvarriato, A. (2015). ‘Mexico’s Real Wages in the Age of the Great Divergence, 1730–1930’, Revista de Historia Económica/Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, 33(1), 83122.Google Scholar
Chenery, H. B. and Syrquin, M. (1975). Patterns of Development, 1950–1970, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Conference Board. (2018). ‘Total Economy Database, Output, Labor and Labor Productivity, 1950–2018’, www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/index.cfm?id=27762 (accessed 29 September 2020).Google Scholar
Cutler, D., Deaton, A., and Lleras-Muney, A. (2006). ‘The Determinants of Mortality’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(1), 97120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cvrcek, T. (2013). ‘Wages, Prices, and Living Standards in the Habsburg Empire, 1827–1910’, Journal of Economic History, 73(1), 137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deaton, A. (2013). The Great Escape: Health, Wealth and the Origins of Inequality, Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
de Zwart, P. (2011). ‘South African Living Standards in Global Perspective, 1835–1910’, Economic History of Developing Regions, 26(1), 4974.Google Scholar
Easterlin, R. A. (1999). ‘How Beneficent is the Market? A Look at the Modern History of Mortality’, European Review of Economic History, 3, 257294.Google Scholar
Eggleston, K. N. and Fuchs, V. (2012). ‘The New Demographic Transition: Most Gains in Life Expectancy Now Realized Late in Life’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 26(1), 137156.Google Scholar
Frankema, E. and van Waijenburg, M. (2012). ‘Structural Impediments to African Growth? New Evidence from Real Wages in British Africa, 1880–1965’, Journal of Economic History, 72(4), 895926.Google Scholar
Fukao, K., Ma, D., and Yuan, T. (2006). ‘International Comparison in Historical Perspective: Reconstructing the 1934–1936 Benchmark Purchasing Power Parity for Japan, Korea, and Taiwan’, Explorations in Economic History, 43, 280308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldin, C. and Katz, L. F. (2008). The Race between Education and Technology, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gordon, R. J. (2016). The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The US Standard of Living since the Civil War, Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Heldring, L. and Robinson, J. A. (2012). ‘Colonialism and Economic Development in Africa’, NBER working paper 18566, National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Huberman, M. and Minns, C. (2007). ‘The Times They Are Not Changin’: Days and Hours of Work in Old and New Worlds, 1870–2000’, Explorations in Economic History, 44(4), 538–537.Google Scholar
Japan Statistical Association. (1987/1988). Nippon chōki tōkei sōran, Tokyo: Japan Statistical Association.Google Scholar
Jayachandran, S., Lleras-Muney, A., and Smith, K. V. (2010). ‘Modern Medicine and the Twentieth-Century Decline in Mortality: Evidence on the Impact of Sulfa Drugs’, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2(1), 118146.Google Scholar
Juif, D. and Frankema, E. (2018). ‘From Coercion to Compensation: Institutional Responses to Labour Scarcity in the Central African Copperbelt’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 14(2), 313343.Google Scholar
Kaplan, S. N. and Rauh, J. (2013). ‘It’s the Market: The Broad-Based Rise in the Return to Top Talent’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27(3), 3556.Google Scholar
Kuznets, S. (1953). Shares of Upper Income Groups in Income and Savings, Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Kuznets, S. (1955). ‘Economic Growth and Income Inequality’, American Economic Review, 45(1), 128.Google Scholar
Lakner, C. and Milanovic, B. (2016). ‘Global Income Distribution: From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to the Great Recession’, World Bank Economic Review, 30(2), 203232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindert, P. H. (2004). Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Maddison, A. (2006). The World Economy, Paris: OECD Development Centre.Google Scholar
Maddison Project Database, 2013 version. Bolt, J. and van Zanden, J. L. (2014). ‘The Maddison Project: Collaborative Research on Historical National Accounts’, Economic History Review, 67, 627651.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Makino, F. and Minami, R. (2015). Chūgoku, Tokyo: Toyokiezaishimposha.Google Scholar
Mathers, C. D., Sadana, R., Salomon, J. A., Murray, C. J. L., and Lopez, A. D. (2001). ‘Healthy Life Expectancy in 191 Countries’, Lancet, 357, 16851691.Google Scholar
Milanovic, B. (2011). ‘A Short History of Global Inequality: The Past Two Centuries’, Explorations in Economic History, 48(4), 494506.Google Scholar
Milanovic, B. (2016). Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Mizoguchi, T. (2008). Taiwan, Tokyo: Toyokiezaishimposha.Google Scholar
OECD. (2019). Income Distribution Database, available online at https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=IDD (accessed 15 February 2019).Google Scholar
Ohkawa, K. (1967). Bukka, Chōki keizai tōkei, Vol. 8, Tokyo: Toyokeizaishimposha.Google Scholar
Özmucur, S. and Pamuk, S. (2002). ‘Real Wages and Standards of Living in the Ottoman Empire, 1489–1914’, Journal of Economic History, 62(2), 293321.Google Scholar
Prados de la Escosura, L. (2000). ‘International Comparisons of Real Product, 1820–1990: An Alternative Data Set’, Explorations in Economic History, 37(1), 141.Google Scholar
Prados de la Escosura, L. (2007). ‘European Patterns of Development in Historical Perspective’, Scandinavian Economic History Review, 55(3), 187221.Google Scholar
Prados de la Escosura, L. (2008). ‘Inequality, Poverty, and the Kuznets Curve in Spain, 1850–2000’, European Review of Economic History, 12(3), 287324.Google Scholar
Prados de la Escosura, L. (2015). ‘World Human Development: 1870–2007’, Review of Income and Wealth, 61(2), 220247.Google Scholar
Prados de la Escosura, L. (2018). ‘Well-Being Inequality in the Long Run’, CEPR Discussion Paper 12920, Centre for Economic Policy Research.Google Scholar
Preston, S. H. (1975). ‘Mortality and Level of Development’, Population Studies, 29, 231248.Google Scholar
Ravallion, M. (2018). ‘Inequality and Globalization: A Review Essay’, Journal of Economic Literature, 56(2), 620642.Google Scholar
Riley, J. C. (2005). Poverty and Life Expectancy: The Jamaica Paradox, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2010). Human Development Report, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
van Zanden, J. L., Baten, J., Foldvári, P., and van Leeuwen, B. (2014). ‘The Changing Shape of Global Inequality, 1820–2000: Exploring a New Dataset’, Review of Income and Wealth, 60(2), 279297.Google Scholar
Williamson, J. G. (1995). ‘The Evolution of Global Labor Markets Since 1830: Background Evidence and Hypotheses’, Explorations in Economic History, 32(2), 141196.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×