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THE EARLY MODERN GREAT DIVERGENCE: WAGES, PRICES AND

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN EUROPE AND ASIA, 1500-1800

Stephen Broadberry and Bishnupriya Gupta

Department of Economics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United

Kingdom

S.N.Broadberr[email protected]

[email protected]

29 September 2003

File: wage7a

Abstract: Contrary to the claims of Pomeranz, Parthasarathi and other “world

historians”, the prosperous parts of Asia between 1500 and 1800 look similar to the

stagnating southern, central and eastern parts of Europe rather than the developing

northwestern parts. In the advanced parts of India and China, grain wages were

comparable to those in northwestern Europe, but silver wages, which conferred

purchasing power over tradable goods and services, were substantially lower. The

high silver wages of northwestern Europe were not simply a monetary phenomenon,

but reflected high productivity in the tradable sector. The “Great Divergence”

between Europe and Asia was already well underway before 1800.

JEL classification: N10, N30, O10

Key words: Wages, prices, development, Europe, Asia

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank, without in any way implicating, Bob

Allen, Jörg Baten, V. Bhaskar, Kent Deng, Rainer Fremdling, Regina Grafe, George

Grantham, Tim Guinnane, Irfan Habib, Angus Maddison, Shireen Moosvi, Patrick

O’Brien, Kevin O’Rourke, Sevket Pamuk, Albrecht Ritschl, Peter Wardley, Nuala

Zahedieh and seminar/conference participants at Berlin, Copenhagen, Dublin,

Durham, Madrid, Nashville and Warwick for helpful comments and discussions.

I. INTRODUCTION

World historians such as Pomeranz (2000), Parthasarathi (1998; 2001) and Frank

(1998) have recently claimed that the “Great Divergence” between Europe and Asia

occurred only after 1800, and that before that date, the most advanced parts of Europe

and Asia should be seen as on the same development level, with “multiples cores and

shared constraints” (Pomeranz, 2000: 107). In this paper, however, we argue that the

most advanced parts of Asia in 1800 should be seen as on the same development level

as the stagnating parts of the European periphery. Although it is possible to show that

grain wages were still close to northwest European levels in the most advanced parts

of Asia in 1800, silver wages were a fraction of northwest European levels.

Furthermore, the geographical distribution of silver wages corresponds to the

established pattern shown by other indicators of economic development, such as the

urbanization ratio.

Pomeranz (2000) argues that per capita food consumption and the purchasing

power of wages measured in terms of calories was as high in the Yangzi delta region

of China as in the most developed parts of Europe as late as the end of the eighteenth

century. Similarly, Parthasarathi (1998, 2001) argues that during the eighteenth

century, wages in southern India could purchase about the same amount of Indian

grain as wages in Britain could purchase British grain. Parthasarathi (1998: 101-102),

however, also emphasizes the low purchasing power of Indian wages measured in

grams of silver. He treats this as evidence of the low price of grain in southern India,

which he sees as the result of high agricultural productivity. However, we need to be

careful here before we follow Pomeranz (2000) and Parthasarathi (1998) in regarding

the Yangzi delta region of China, southern India and other parts of Asia as on the

same development level as the most developed parts of Europe such as Britain and the

Netherlands. For this pattern of high wages measured in terms of the amount of grain

they could purchase, but low wages in terms of the silver content of the currency in

which they were paid, was also a feature of the less developed parts of southern,

central and eastern Europe during the early modern period. We argue, therefore, that

by the eighteenth century the more economically advanced parts of Asia should be

seen as on the same level as the more peripheral rather than the most developed parts

of Europe.

We argue that the high silver wages of northwestern Europe were not simply a

monetary phenomenon resulting from an inflow of New World bullion, but reflected

high productivity in the traded goods sector. Although the bullion flowed in through

Spain, prices rose by a similar amount in most European countries. Despite this, silver

wage leadership passed from the south to the north, with England showing the most

rapid growth. The gap between the “silver wage” and the “grain wage” can hence be

used as an indicator of the level of development. This conforms with the well known

tendency for both wages and prices to be higher in developed economies, so that

international comparison of wages at the official exchange rate gives a misleading

impression of the gap in living standards btween developed and underdeveloped

countries (Balassa, 1964; Samuelson, 1964). However, it also confirms, in the context

of the Europe-Asia nexus, the early existence of some of the key features of the

relationship between a developed and a less developed country (LDC): (1) Wages in

the LDC meet the food needs of the population given the price of food in the LDC,

but would not purchase sufficient food in the developed country at developed country

prices (2) Manufactures produced in the LDC are relatively expensive within the LDC

(at local relative prices), but are competitive on world markets because of the low

wages measured in developed country prices.

The paper proceeds as follows. Section II establishes the pattern of an

emerging silver wage leadership in northwestern Europe despite the absence of any

clear grain wage leadership before the nineteenth century, and shows how this pattern

is related to other indicators of development such as urbanization. Sections III and IV

then shows how regions of India and China, respectively, look more like the

stagnating parts of southern, eastern and central Europe than the modernizing parts of

northwestern Europe. Despite the high grain wages emphasized by world historians,

the most advanced parts of Asia also had very low silver wages and low levels of

urbanization. Section V demonstrates that the high silver wages of northwestern

Europe cannot be dismissed as a purely monetary phenomenon, but reflected high

productivity in the traded goods sector.

II. WAGES AND PRICES IN EUROPE

1. Silver wages and grain wages

Largely as a result of the pioneering work of the International Committee on Price

History during the 1930s, it is possible to gather data on the daily wages of unskilled

and skilled building workers in many European cities and regions between 1500 and

1800, and to compare them in terms of both the silver content of the local currencies

and the volume of grain that they could purchase (Beveridge, 1939: xlix-li).

Following van Zanden (1999), the former is called the “silver wage” and the latter the

“grain wage”. The pattern of silver wages in Europe is shown in Table 1, taken from

Allen (2001: 416), where the data are presented as averages over periods of fifty years

to deal with problems of volatility and information gaps for particular years (van

Zanden, 1999: 179).

The key findings are as follows: (1) Northwestern Europe saw substantial

silver wage growth, with Britain overtaking the Netherlands during the eighteenth

century. (2) In southern Europe there were considerable fluctuations but less trend

growth in the silver wage, starting from about the same level as northwestern Europe

in 1500. (3) In central and eastern Europe, as in southern Europe, there were

substantial fluctuations in silver wages but only weak trend growth, starting from a

significantly lower level than northwestern Europe in 1500. (4) The regional variation

is broadly similar for skilled and unskilled workers, with a skill premium of around 50

per cent in northwestern Europe, but rising closer to 100 per cent in much of southern,

central and eastern Europe.

The pattern of silver wages is therefore broadly in line with conventional

views about the level of development in different parts of Europe, with northwestern

Europe pulling ahead of the previously more developed south, and with central and

eastern Europe continuing to lag behind. Indeed, van Zanden (1999: 181) notes a

strong positive correlation between the silver wage by country and the urbanization

ratio by country.

Grain wages for the same cities and regions, where available, are presented in

Table 2. Here, wages are compared in terms of the volume of wheat or rye that they

could buy, given the local prices of grain. This was usually wheat in northwestern and

southern Europe and rye in central and eastern Europe (apart from Vienna). In

Holland, where both grains were widely available, rye sold for about two-thirds the

price of wheat (van Zanden, 1999: 184). The grain wages in Table 2 show almost the

mirror image of the silver wages in Table 1, with a negative trend in all regions, and

with the highest level of grain wages in central and eastern Europe. This suggests that

the high silver wages of the developing parts of Europe were not actually enabling

people to buy more food.

2. Relative prices and real consumption wages

High and rising silver wages in northwestern Europe did not translate into high grain

wages before the nineteenth century. However, real consumption wages may still

have risen through increased consumption of non-agricultural goods and services, the

prices of which were falling relative to the price of grain. In England, for example, we

know that the price of farinaceous goods (including wheat, barley, rye, peas and

potatoes) increased by a factor of nine between the mid-fifteenth century and the end

of the eighteenth century, while the price of textiles increased only by a factor of three

(Phelps Brown and Hopkins, 1981: 44-59).

Phelps Brown and Hopkins (1981) calculate price indices for each country

based on non-food items as well as food, so that it is possible to examine trends in real

consumption wages within individual countries, but not to compare real consumption

wages between countries. Following Allen (2001), however, it is possible to compare

European real consumption wages across both space and time. The results in Table 3

compute the real consumption wage of unskilled building laborers in European

countries over the period 1500-49 to 1800-49, using the data on silver wages from

Table 1 together with Allen’s (2001: 426) data on the price of a basket of

commodities in each city in each period. The results have been reported here with

London 1500-49 as the base.

The real consumption wage data in Table 3 remove the most perplexing aspect

of the real grain wage data in Table 2, the apparently higher living standards in central

and eastern Europe. The real consumption wage data show the opening of a gap

between northwestern Europe on the one hand and southern, central and eastern

Europe on the other hand, as in the silver wage data of Table 1. This means that the

high grain wages of central and eastern Europe, noted by van Zanden (1999) and

shown here in Table 2, did not translate into high real consumption wages. As Allen

(2001: 419-420) notes, urban wage earners purchased bread rather than grain and

there were other non-grain items in the consumption basket.

However, Allen’s real consumption wage data do not remove altogether the

pessimistic view of declining living standards in Europe between 1500 and 1800,

previously suggested by Abel (1980), Braudel and Spooner (1967) and van Zanden

(1999). They suggest, rather, that the divergence between living standards in the

developed parts of northwestern Europe and the less developed parts of southern,

central and eastern Europe occurred as a result of constant real wages in the northwest

and collapsing real wages in the other regions. This finding is, however, based on the

assumption of a constant number of days worked per year, so that daily wage rates

can be taken as representative of annual earnings. This assumption can be criticized

Allen (2001: 428) reports his results in the form of “welfare ratios”. Assuming a working year of 250

days, on the basis of a 5-day working week for 50 weeks, Allen (2001: 424-431) computes an annual

income for a building laborer and compares it to a notional poverty line for a family consisting of a

man, a woman and two children consuming a few basic products. The poverty line is calculated taking

account of some important differences in national climate and cuisine, and allowing for local prices.

on the grounds that it neglects to take account of the “Industrious Revolution” (de

Vries, 1994).

The Industrious Revolution was proposed by de Vries (1993: 107) as a

solution to the conundrum that despite the apparent constancy of real daily wage rates

in Europe during the early modern period, the evidence from probate inventories and

direct consumption measures reveals “an ever-multiplying world of goods, a richly

varied and expanding material culture, with origins going back to the seventeenth

century and exhibiting a social range extending far down the hierarchy”. For de Vries

(1994: 257), the Industrious Revolution consisted of a new strategy of household

utility maximization, involving a reduction of leisure time and a reallocation of labor

from non-market to market activities, so as to allow increased consumption of market-

supplied goods. He sees the process as containing a demand-side element through

changing tastes, and not simply as a response to commercial incentives such as

changing relative prices and reduced transactions costs (de Vries, 1994: 256).

Allowing for the Industrious Revolution would produce a modest trend rise of

the real wage in northwestern Europe. For example, in London we might allow for an

increase in the number of days worked per year from 250 to 300 between 1750-99 and

1850-49 in line with Voth’s (1998) evidence on the decline of “St. Monday”. We

might also allow for an increase in the number of days worked per year from 200 to

250 between 1500-49 and 1550-99, in line with the evidence of de Vries (1993: 110-

111) on the large reduction in the number of feast days following the Reformation.

This would produce an increase in the real consumption wages of unskilled laborers

The resulting “welfare ratio” of earnings relative to the poverty line, can be thought of as “a peculiarly

in London of 0.13 per cent per annum over the 300 years following 1500-49, and still

by only 0.19 per cent per annum over the 200 years following 1600-49.

3. Structural change and urbanization

Another way in which the daily wage data could be seen as consistent with an upward

trend in real living standards would be if there was substantial structural change, with

a shift from low paid agricultural jobs in rural areas to higher paying industrial

employment in urban areas. Since Crafts and Harley (1992) estimate that per capita

income in Britain grew at an annual rate of 0.32 per cent per annum between 1700

and 1830, rising to 0.5 per cent per annum between 1800 and 1830, there would be

plenty of room for effects arising from an Industrious Revolution and structural

change.

To see the extent of structural change with economic development, we can

chart the patterns of urban population shares in Table 4, derived from de Vries (1984).

The urban share of the population is based here on cities of more than 10,000

inhabitants.

During the Middle Ages, the most developed parts of Europe were in the

Mediterranean region, centered particularly on Spain and northern Italy, and there was

a further center of development based on Belgium and the Netherlands in

northwestern Europe. Urban development lagged behind in central and eastern

Europe. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, urban and non-agricultural

activity stagnated in Spain and Italy, so that the center of gravity moved to

scaled real wage index” (Allen, 2001: 427).

Bairoch (1976) provides alternative urbanization ratios for cities of more than 5,000 inhabitants, but

inhabitants of smaller cities are added to the large cities in constant proportion, a procedure criticized

strongly by de Vries (1984: 347). Bairoch’s figures are used by Allen (2000: 8-9), and suggest some

different trends in individual countries, but not for Europe as a whole. The agreement between de Vries

northwestern Europe, with England emerging as the most dynamic region of urban

and non-agricultural development. Urban development continued to lag behind in

central and eastern Europe.

Recent work on economic geography and development has placed

considerable emphasis on external economies of scale associated with urbanization as

well as localization. Economies of localization refer to the benefits derived by a

producer from the proximity of other producers in the same industry, and can be

linked to the work of Marshall [1920], who stressed the flows of specialized

information, the availability of a skilled labor supply and specialized machine

builders, and thick markets for other inputs and outputs. However, the formation of

“industrial districts” to reap economies of localization does not necessarily imply

large-scale urbanization, and may be quite consistent with proto-industrialization

(Mendels, 1972). Jacobs (1969), however, emphasizes the benefits derived by a

producer from the wider infrastructure associated with the spatial concentration of a

diverse range of industries. Such benefits cannot, by definition, be realized in a proto-

industrial setting. The recent literature of writers such as Glaeser et al. (1992) and

Henderson et al. (1995) is thus consistent with the skeptical view of proto-

industrialisation as a stage on the road to modern economic growth expressed by

writers such as Coleman (1983) and Clarkson (1985). Rural peasants supplementing

their agricultural incomes with some industrial production should not be confused

with specialized industrial production in highly urbanized economies. Note, further,

that high productivity in the traded goods sector in northwestern Europe may be seen

as arising through merchant distribution and finance as much as through production.

and Bairoch at the level of Europe as a whole appears to be due to an error in Bairoch’s total

The service sector can thus be seen as playing a crucial role in economic growth

during the early modern period, as in the modern period (Broadberry, 1998;

Broadberry and Ghosal, 2002; 2003).

4. Distribution and relative prices

If living standards of northwest Europeans increased through the falling relative price

of manufactured goods rather than through increased consumption of basic foodstuffs

such as grain, it is likely that the fruits of early modern development were spread

unevenly. Clearly, the wages of skilled laborers in Tables 1 and 2 yielded a larger

surplus over basic food needs than the wages of unskilled laborers. And if wages only

covered basic needs, there was little scope to benefit from the falling relative price of

manufactures. Hoffman et al. (2002: 334) show that during the early modern period,

the relative price of luxuries was declining, so that the gains were greatest of all for

the top 20 per cent of the income distribution.

To summarize the situation in Europe, we see the following patterns: (1)

During the Middle Ages, the highest silver wages were recorded in southern Europe,

but during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries silver wage leadership passed to

northwestern Europe. (2) These developments were closely linked to urban and non-

agricultural development, with stagnation in southern Europe and dynamic growth in

northwestern Europe, particularly England. (3) These silver wage patterns are not

reflected in the grain wage; people moving to the towns with economic development

were not able to buy more food, and any gain in overall living standards for laborers

in northwestern Europe was modest before the early nineteenth century.

population estimates which offsets the error in the urban population estimates.

To understand the “Great Divergence” between Europe and Asia, we need to

know if the more advanced parts of Asia looked more like northwestern Europe (high

silver wages but modest grain wages for the mass of laborers) or more like southern,

central and eastern Europe (low silver wages as well as modest grain wages). We now

turn to an examination of wages and prices in India and China.

III. WAGES AND PRICES IN INDIA

1. Silver wages and grain wages

Data on money wages and grain prices expressed in silver content are readily

available for India from a number of sources. The starting point is Mughal India under

Akbar, for which we have surprisingly detailed information on wages and prices from

$E ¶OFazl’s [1595] remarkable document, 7KH ¶ Q±L$NEDU . This provides

information on the day wages of unskilled and skilled workers in northern India in

1595. For the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the main source are the records of

the English and Dutch East India Companies. For the nineteenth century the data

come from statistical records produced by government. Although a number of studies

have attempted to compare the purchasing power of the wages of unskilled laborers

between 1595 and the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there has been less

work on the intervening period (Desai, 1972; 1978; Moosvi, 1973; 1977; Heston,

1977). Furthermore, these studies do not place Indian experience in an international

context. We now turn to establishing the level of silver wages and grain wages in

India at a number of points between 1595 and 1874 in units that will facilitate a

comparison with Europe. We also address the issue of regional variations within

India, following the claim of Parthasarasthi (1998; 2001) that grain wages in southern

India were on a par with British grain wages during the eighteenth century.

Table 5 presents data on daily wages of unskilled and skilled laborers in terms

of both their silver content and the amount of grain that they could purchase. Part A

provides data for northern and western India, based on the cities of Agra and Surat.

Wages in rupees are converted to grams of silver using information from Habib

(1978) and Chaudhuri (1978). The broad trend is for the silver wage to rise, with the

skilled wage about double the unskilled wage, as in the peripheral rather than core

northwestern parts of Europe. The rising silver wage is consistent with the constancy

of the money wage expressed in copper dams per day, since the price of silver

depreciated relative to copper (Habib, 1978: 370). Our findings are thus broadly

consistent with those of Mukerjee (1967: 26).

We then use the price of grain to convert the money wages into grain wages.

The data are presented in terms of both wheat and rice, and for both unskilled and

skilled workers. In contrast to the rising trend in silver wages, grain wages trended

downwards in northern and western India, as money wages failed to keep up with the

rising trend in grain prices, particularly during the early seventeenth century. Brennig

(1986: 349) argues that subsistence consumption for a household of six was 3.1 kg of

rice per day. Taking the wheat/rice ratio of calories per lb from Parthasarathi (1998:

83) yields a subsistence consumption of 4.7 kg of wheat per day for a family of six.

On this basis, grain wages were always above subsistence for skilled workers, but fell

below the subsistence level for unskilled workers during the early seventeenth

century.

In southern India, money wage rates are usually available in units of the

pagoda, a gold coin. These pagoda rates are converted to silver rupees using East

India Company standard rates from Chaudhuri (1978: 471). Although the bulk of the

figures for southern India appear to fit quite well with the figures for northern and

western India, the figures for 1750 stand out as substantially higher. These figures are

taken from Parthasarathi (1998) and are placed in parentheses because we think they

are unrepresentative and therefore misleading as a guide to overall wage levels in

southern India.

Parthasarathi (1998: 84, 97) argues that a relatively unskilled weaver could

earn 5 pagodas in two months, which would allow a weekly purchase of 65 lb of rice.

This is consistent with the standard data on the price of rice in southern India in the

mid-eighteenth century from Arasaratnam (1980: 270) at 105 lb per pagoda (or 33 lb

per rupee). However, the wage rate is roughly twice the average from other sources,

including unskilled wage rates from Arasaratnam (1980: 343) for the same occupation

in the same area at around the same time. Parthasarathi (1998: 84, fn20) claims that

his high grain wage estimates are supported by the figures of Brennig (1986).

However, Brennig (1986: 349) actually works with quite low monthly earnings of

unskilled weavers (1 pagoda), and obtains his estimates of a high grain wage by using

an exceptionally low rice price (400 lb per pagoda). Neither Parthasarathi’s high

money wage nor Brennig’s low grain price fits into the wider picture of trends over

time and across regions.

2. Regional issues

Parthasarathi (1998: 102) suggests that the high grain wages which he claims for

southern India were the result of the high productivity of rice-growing agriculture.

This is of particular interest because the part of China that Pomeranz (2000) claims

had living standards on a par with Britain in the eighteenth century, the Yangzi delta,

is also a rice-growing area. Furthermore, Mukerjee’s (1967: 44, 49) figures for Bengal

in the eighteenth century are also consistent with high grain wages despite low silver

wages, due to the cheap price of rice. One way of explaining the high standard of

living being claimed for parts of Asia in the eighteenth century, then, may simply be

to see it as a result of the naturally high yield of grain in rice-growing areas. The

reduced need for shelter, fuel and clothing in a warm climate may be seen as further

reinforcing this effect. But this is clearly not the message that “world historians”

would wish to draw, and Parthasarathi (2001: 43-53) claims that the high productivity

of southern Indian agriculture was the result not of geographical factors, but of high

levels of investment during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Parthasarathi’s explanation of how the investment in southern Indian

agriculture came about and how it led to both high levels of economic development

and low silver wages raises a number of serious logical difficulties. In the developing

parts of northwestern Europe, institutional change is usually seen as bringing about

investment in agriculture, leading in turn to high agricultural labor productivity.

However, this higher agricultural labor productivity did not lead to an abundance of

grain and low food prices, because labor moved out of agriculture into industry and

services. Rising living standards came from increasing consumption of cheaper

industrial goods, together with relatively constant consumption of food. In

Parthasarthi’s (2001: 43-53) view of southern India, however, investment in

agriculture was the result of rulers competing to attract and fix mobile labor. This

investment is then seen as leading to an abundance of grain, and low food prices.

Given the low price of food, it was then possible to pay low money wages to laborers

in industry, and Indian industrial goods were highly competitive on world markets.

However, this raises more questions than it answers: (1) Why did competition

between Indian rulers for laborers take the form of investment in land improvements

rather than direct payments to laborers? (2) Why did rising productivity in Indian

agriculture lead to an abundance of grain rather than a reallocation of labor to industry

and services? (3) Why did the relative abundance of grain lead to a low overall price

level rather than just a low relative price of grain (or high relative price of other

goods)? (4) Suppose the absolute price level did start out low, making Indian textiles

cheap on world markets. That should have caused an inflow of bullion, which should

have raised the Indian price level. How could such equilibrating forces have been

offset for two centuries?

A more plausible view is that southern India did have an abundance of rice

arising from natural geographical factors, together with a high proportion of the labor

force engaged in agriculture. However, the cloth export industry was but a small part

of a larger economy that produced at low levels of average labor productivity. This

more traditional view of southern India would also be consistent with the evidence on

urbanization, which sees the north as more urban than the south (Hambly and Stein,

1978; Blake, 1987).

In this view, southern India would be more akin to Poland than

The urban population in India during Akbar’s reign has been estimated at 15 per cent, made up of 120

big cities and 3,200 townships, although the latter includes settlements of less than 10,000 inhabitants.

The urbanization ratio declined in the nineteenth century, and the sixteenth century ratio was not

attained again until the second half of the twentieth century (Habib, 1999: 84-85).

Britain in the eighteenth century, with high grain wages reflecting an abundance of

grain and low silver wages reflecting low levels of overall development.

3. An Anglo-Indian comparison

Table 6 allows a direct Anglo-Indian comparison of silver wages and grain wages for

unskilled workers. The Indian silver wage for unskilled laborers was little more than a

fifth of its English counterpart at the end of the sixteenth century, and it fell to little

more than one-seventh of the English level during the eighteenth century. We have

excluded Parthasarathi’s (1998) estimates from this table since we think they

exaggerate the Indian level of wages in the mid-eighteenth century. But even if these

estimates were included, they would merely show Indian silver wages temporarily

shooting up to about 40 per cent of the British level in the first half of the eighteenth

century. The silver wage data suggest unambiguously, then, that the Great Divergence

was already well established in the sixteenth century.

Although the Indian grain wage remained close to the English level until the

end of the seventeenth century, our data indicate a sharp divergence during the

eighteenth century. This divergence occurred partly as a result of a rise in the English

grain wage, but also partly as a result of a decline in the Indian grain wage. This

means that India looks rather more like the peripheral parts of southern, central and

eastern Europe than the developing parts of northwestern Europe. In short, India was

not on the same development level as Britain during the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries.

IV. WAGES AND PRICES IN CHINA

1. Silver wages and grain wages

Detailed data on grain prices are readily available for Qing dynasty China (1644-

1911), as a result of a system of price reports recording the highest and lowest prices

in each prefecture during each lunar month (Wang, 1972; 1992; Chuan and Kraus,

1975: 1-16). However, there is no equivalent of the systematic money wage data

available in Europe, due to the fact that money wages were typically supplemented by

substantial food allowances (Pomeranz, 2000: 319-320). Even in late nineteenth

century Beijing, Gamble (1943: 66) finds food money exceeding money wages for

unskilled men working with the carpenters’ and masons’ guilds. Scattered estimates

of the total wage (including food) paid to hired laborers in Chinese agriculture are

available, however, and we shall make use of these. We shall focus on the Yangzi

delta region, since it has been claimed by Pomeranz (2000) that this was not only the

most advanced part of China throughout the period under consideration, but was also

as economically developed as the most advanced parts of northwestern Europe.

These data in Table 7 show a small drop in Yangzi delta money wages

between the Late Ming and Mid Qing periods. Converting the money wage in taels

into grams of silver enables us to make a comparison with the silver wage in Europe

and India. The unskilled silver wage in China was about the same as the unskilled

silver wage in India, and a small fraction of the silver wage in northwestern Europe.

With the price of rice increasing between the Late Ming and Mid Qing periods, grain

wages declined sharply. Grain wages in the Yangzi delta were of the same order of

magnitude as in India.

The declining grain wage is easier to reconcile with the picture of Yangzi delta

agriculture in the work of Huang (1990; 2002) and Brenner and Isett (2002) than with

the more optimistic picture in Pomeranz (2000) and Li (1998). Huang (1990) uses the

term involution to describe Yangzi delta agriculture, and Chinese agriculture more

generally. As the size of peasant farms declined with population growth, average farm

size became too small to support a peasant household through agricultural production,

and household incomes were maintained by participation in low productivity textile

production. By contrast, Li (1998) argues for rising agricultural labor productivity in

the Yangzi delta between the Late Ming and Mid Qing periods. Although at first sight

Li (1998) appears to provide quantitative evidence to support his view, it must be

emphasized that he has merely constructed stylized examples based on Chinese

agricultural handbooks of the time. Furthermore, these examples are based on the

assumption that the original yield data in the agricultural handbooks are always

reported in terms of husked rice rather than unhusked paddy. This makes quite a

difference, because 1 shi of paddy yields just 0.5 shi of husked rice (Li, 1998: xvii). If

the original yield data refer sometimes to unhusked paddy, as suggested by Perkins

(1969: 318-319), labor productivity levels and trends could be substantially altered.

The Chinese wage data show the same basic patterns as the Indian wage data.

The Anglo-Chinese comparison in Table 8 thus shows a very similar picture to the

Anglo-Indian comparison on Table 6. The silver wage was already much lower in

China than in Britain by the Late Ming period, while the Chinese grain wage had also

fallen decisively behind by the Mid Qing period.

2. Urbanization and the structure of the economy

It is possible to derive estimates of the extent of urbanization in China on a

comparable basis to the estimates of de Vries (1984) for Europe (Maddison, 1998: 33-

36). Although Rozman (1973) focuses on urbanization ratios for all levels of central

places, he presents enough information to derive estimates for cities of at least 10,000

inhabitants (levels 1-4). Table 9 presents estimates on both bases, together with the

data on cities of at least 10,000 inhabitants for Europe. On a comparable basis, it is

clear that urbanization was already higher in Europe than in China during the Ming

dynasty, and that Europe’s advantage had grown substantially by the early nineteenth

century (particularly in England and Wales). Furthermore, the regional breakdown of

urbanization ratios for China in Table 10 does not suggest a development gradient

anything like as steep as in Europe. The most developed part of China, the Yangzi

delta, is in Jiangsu in east central China. Although the urbanization ratio was highest

in this region, the scale of the difference with the poorer regions was not particularly

large. Li (1998: 21-23) argues that Rozman’s Jiangsu figure for all urban settlements

is an under-estimate for the Yangzi delta, but his suggestion of an urbanization ratio

for the latter of 15 per cent in 1700 is still way below the level in the Netherlands

(33.6 per cent, even when the Netherlands figure is restricted to cities of more than

10,000). In short, there is nothing in the urbanization ratios to suggest that China or

the Yangzi delta were on the same development level as northwestern Europe.

V. SILVER AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

1. Bullion flows and price inflation

Grain wages in India and China appear to have been quite close to levels in

northwestern Europe until the end of the seventeenth century. Given the potential for

measurement errors, it would be difficult to argue on the basis of this evidence alone

that the Great Divergence between Europe and Asia was already strongly underway

before the eighteenth century. Rather, it is the combination of this modest grain wage

gap together with the evidence of a much larger silver wage gap that we think adds up

to a strong case for an early Great Divergence. It is important, then, that the low silver

wages in Asia cannot be explained away as a purely monetary phenomenon.

One potential explanation for higher silver wages in Europe would be the

inflow of precious metals from the New World during the sixteenth century. It might

be expected on quantity theory of money grounds that this would lead to higher prices

and wages without any real effects on the standard of living. As is well known, there

was a substantial price inflation in Europe during the sixteenth century, which some

writers have indeed attributed to the bullion flows (Hamilton, 1934; Braudel and

Spooner, 1967). However, on closer examination, it is clear that bullion flows do not

provide an adequate explanation of the much higher silver wages in Europe compared

with Asia, since much of the bullion flowed to the East, both directly via the

Philippines and indirectly via Europe (Barrett, 1990). Rather, we see these high silver

wages as reflecting economic development. This becomes clear when we consider

regional patterns within Europe, since although prices converged, silver wages

diverged.

Looking first at the issue of price convergence, we know that although the

bullion flows entered Europe through Spain, price levels rose by similar amounts in

most European countries (Abel, 1980: 116-120).

This is consistent with the classical

price-specie-flow mechanism, with an initial increase in Spanish prices leading to a

Hence the similar regional pattern in Tables 1 and 3.

reduction in exports and an increase in imports, and hence to a Spanish balance of

payments deficit. Since a Spanish balance of payments deficit meant an outflow of

bullion from Spain, this meant also a rise in the price level in the bullion receiving

countries (Craig and Fisher, 2000: 70-71). Following criticisms concerning the timing

of bullion flows and inflation in particular countries, the argument has been

reformulated in terms of the monetary approach to the balance of payments (Flynn,

1978; Frenkel and Johnson, 1976). In this approach, the initial impact of the

inflationary monetary shock in Spain was transmitted abroad via the law of one price,

which raised the demand for money irrespective of the bullion flows.

Second, turning to the issue of wage divergence, we have seen that while

prices rose along the same trend in all European countries, Spain lost its position as

the high silver wage country, while England saw the biggest long run gains. This

suggests that the shift of silver wage leadership from southern Europe to northwestern

Europe reflected real economic forces rather than monetary forces.

Hence the

development gradient within Europe is broadly captured by the pattern of silver

wages. Within this framework, India and China look much more like the stagnating

parts of southern or central and eastern Europe, than the developing parts of

northwestern Europe.

2. Explaining the silver wage gap

It is well known that there is a tendency for both wages and prices to be higher in

developed economies, so that international comparison of wages at the official

exchange rate gives a misleading impression of the gap in living standards between

developed and less developed countries (Balassa, 1964; Samuelson, 1964). As a result

of this, wages and per capita incomes are usually compared on a purchasing power

parity (PPP) adjusted basis, taking account of the prices of consumer goods in the

countries being compared (Kravis et al., 1978a). Development economists see the

relationship between the PPP-converted and the exchange rate converted levels of per

capita income as conditioned upon a number of real factors affecting the structure of

the economy (Kravis et al., 1978b; Bhagwati, 1984; Clague, 1985). We see the

relationship between grain wages and silver wages on a comparative basis as related

to these same structural characteristics.

The key results of the Balassa-Samuelson approach to price level differences

can be shown most simply in a two-country Ricardian model, with constant returns to

the single factor of production, labor. Applying the model to the early modern

international economy, we assume that grain is non-tradable internationally, reflecting

the fact that grain was bulky and costly to transport. Thus grain prices were not

equalized between Europe and Asia. On the other hand, commodities such as cloth

and bullion were widely traded internationally, with arbitrage tending to equalize

prices between countries.

If the relative prices of all tradable goods are the same in

both countries, we can aggregate and consider them to be a single good, with units

being chosen so that the price of one unit of each tradable good is the same.

Here we

This point can be traced back to Adam Smith’s [1776: 218-219, 256] digression on silver. We are

grateful to George Grantham for alerting us to this illustrious precedent for our argument.

Allen (2003) calculates PPP exchange rates between England and the Yangzi delta around 1800 at

18.32 for cloth and 10.03 for grain at a time when the exchange rate was around 20 bronze cash per

penny.

Obstfeld and Rogoff (1996: 211). Although there were periods of substantial disequilibrium between

Europe and Asia in the gold-silver price ratio, equilibrium was always restored in the long run by

arbitrage (Flynn and Giráldez (2002).

set out the main results intuitively, providing a more detailed exposition of the model

in Appendix 1.

Thus there is one international price for the tradable commodity. Furthermore,

since labor is the only factor of production, the silver wage rate in both countries must

equal revenue labor product in the tradable sector, that is, labor productivity

multiplied by the price of the tradable good. Thus the country with higher real labor

productivity in the tradable sector has the higher silver wage, because the price is the

same in the two countries. Finally, since wages are equalized between sectors within

each economy, this will also be the wage in the non-tradable sector. Again, since

labor is the only factor of production, the price of the non tradable good must equal

the silver wage rate divided by labor productivity in the non-tradable sector. Hence

the price of the non-tradable commodity depends negatively on labor productivity in

the non-tradable sector and positively on labor productivity in the tradable sector

(since this makes for higher silver wages).

A more sophisticated version of this analysis which allows for many distinct

tradable goods has been developed by Dornbusch, Fischer and Samuelson (1977).

The model allows for a continuum of tradable goods, which are arranged in terms of

relative labor productivities, with good 0 having the highest relative labor

productivity for the home country and good 1 having the lowest relative labor

productivity. The marginal tradable good is that which both countries are competitive

in producing. Thus the relative silver wages must equal the relative labor

productivities in the production of this marginal tradable good. The country which has

Obstfeld and Rogoff (1996: 236-243) provide a clear exposition.

higher productivity in the production of this marginal tradable good will have higher

silver wages. This model also shows clearly the principle of comparative advantage –

a country will export the good where its relative productivity is high even though its

absolute productivity may well be lower than that of the other country. Thus India’s

export of cotton textiles is a reflection of comparative advantage, and not of an

absolute superiority in productivity.

Countries in northwestern Europe had high silver wages, while Asia had low

silver wages. These lower silver wages reflected lower productivity in the tradable

sector.

Asian countries produced cheaper grain as a result of lower silver wages, so

that grain wages were almost as high as in northwestern Europe. This means that we

cannot infer equal levels of economic development in parts of Asia and Europe from

observations based on grain wages alone. When silver wages indicate a much higher

command of European wages over traded goods, and levels of urbanization suggest

higher levels of production of non-agricultural goods, it is difficult to avoid the

conclusion that north western Europe was more developed and living standards were

higher.

VI. CONCLUSIONS

This paper has attempted a quantitative assessment of the recent claims of Pomeranz

(2000) and other “world historians”, that the “Great Divergence” between Europe and

Asia occurred only after 1800. An examination of data on wages and prices on the

two continents suggests that the prosperous parts of Asia between 1500 and 1800 look

similar to the stagnating southern, central and eastern parts of Europe rather than the

developing northwestern parts. In India and China, grain wages were comparable to

those in northwestern Europe, but silver wages were substantially lower. This is

exactly the pattern observed in the less developed parts of Europe. Essentially, then,

world historians are generalizing the findings of the long-running debate over the

standard of living in Europe to encompass the continent of Asia. It is now widely

accepted following the work of Crafts and Harley (1992) that British economic

growth during the Industrial Revolution was substantially slower than was once

thought, which means that gains in the standard of living were slower to materialize

for the masses. We know now that in northwestern Europe (1) the amount of food

consumed by laborers was slow to rise (2) gains in living standards occurred primarily

through the falling relative price of manufactured goods. However, there is no

revisionist school of European economic history claiming that Poland or Spain were

as likely as Britain to have an Industrial Revolution at the end of the eighteenth

century, and it is no more appropriate to make such a claim for the Yangzi delta

region of China or for southern India.

It is important not to forget that the revisionist work of Crafts and Harley

(1992) had another strand, emphasizing structural change. In addition to highlighting

the modest nature of the growth acceleration during the Industrial Revolution, Crafts

and Harley (1992) pointed out that the extent of the shift of labor out of agriculture in

Britain was more radical than had previously been thought, and also occurred earlier

than was once thought. Generalizing this beyond the British experience, a key feature

of the pattern of development in northwestern Europe was a structural shift out of

agriculture, accompanied by an extensive urbanization. The existence of sufficient

It is likely that before the Industrial Revolution this European productivity advantage in tradables

grain to feed the population at a reasonable standard of living in southern, central and

eastern Europe was the result of a high share of the economy’s resources being

devoted to agriculture, and this shows up in relatively low levels of urbanization.

Similarly, in Asia, the high grain wages of the most prosperous parts of India and

China can be attributed to the high share of agriculture in economic activity,

combined with the natural advantage of the high yield of rice relative to wheat. This is

a long way from the development of a large, specialized, high value added structure

above the subsistence agrarian system that characterized northwest European

countries such as Britain and the Netherlands. The “Great Divergence” between

Europe and Asia, in other words, was already well underway before 1800.

arose from services such as distribution and finance as much as from production methods in

manufacturing (Greif, 2000; Kuran, 2003).

APPENDIX 1: A MODEL OF THE SILVER WAGE GAP

Consider a two-country world, with a single factor of production, labor. We assume

one non-tradable commodity (grain) and a single tradable good As a result of

arbitrage, there is one international price p

for the tradable good measured in the

common unit of account, silver, so that:

pp = (1)

where the superscript T indicates the tradable good and the subscript i indicates the

two countries, Asia and Europe (i=A, E)

With a single factor of production, labor, the silver wage in the two countries is given

by:

= (2)

where

is labor productivity in the tradable sector of country i. Hence the relatively

low silver wage in Asia must reflect low productivity in the tradable goods sector.

Since wages are equalized between sectors within each economy, the wage in the

tradable sector is also the wage in the non-tradable sector. The price of the non-

tradable commodity is thus equal to the silver wage divided by the level of labor

productivity in the non-tradable sector:

= (3)

where the superscript N indicates the non-tradable good and

is labor productivity

in the non-tradable sector of country i. Substituting for wages from (2), we obtain:

= (4)

Hence the price of the non-tradable commodity is reduced by high labor productivity

in the non-tradable sector as well as increased by high labor productivity in the

tradable sector.

The grain wage is the silver wage divided by the price of the non-tradable commodity

in each country. Rearranging equation (3), we have:

= (5)

Hence differences in grain wages reflect only labor productivity differences in non-

tradable production, and do not depend on other factors such as labor productivity

differences in tradable production.

Finally, consider the real consumption wage in the two countries. Assume that the

consumption price is given by the weighted geometric average of the prices of the

traded and non-traded commodities, with a weight of

on the latter, and with

0 <

< 1 (Obstfeld and Rogoff, 1996: 211). Making the relevant substitutions, we

obtain:

()( )

)1(

ββ

αα

−

(6)

If grain wages are roughly equal in the two countries (i.e.

αα

= ), but silver wages

are higher in Europe, this implies that the real consumption wage is lower in Asia, by

a factor which depends on the weight

The model can be generalized to allow for many distinct tradable goods. Dornbusch,

Fischer and Samuelson (1977) consider such a Ricardian model with a continuum of

tradable goods (see Obstfeld and Rogoff, 1996: 236-243 for an exposition). Let

αα

/ denote relative labor productivity in good j. Arrange these goods in order of

decreasing relative labor productivity. Let * denote the index of the marginal tradable

good, i.e. the good that can be produced in both countries. Equation (2) applies where

the productivities relate to the marginal tradable good. That is, the silver wages are

now given by

= (7)

The rest of the analysis, including the determination of non-tradable prices is the same

as with two goods, given this determination of silver wages.

TABLE 1: Silver wages of unskilled and skilled building workers in Europe,

1500-1849 (grams of silver per day)

A. Unskilled laborers

1500-

1550-

1600-

1650-

1700-

1750-

1800-

Northwestern Europe

London 3.2 4.6 7.1 9.7 10.5 11.5 17.7

Southern England 2.5 3.4 4.1 5.6 7.0 8.3 14.6

Amsterdam 3.1 4.7 7.2 8.5 8.9 9.2 9.2

Antwerp 3.0 5.9 7.6 7.1 6.9 6.9 7.7

Paris 2.8 5.5 6.6 6.9 5.1 5.2 9.9

Southern Europe

Valencia 4.2 6.6 8.8 6.9 5.7 5.1 --

Madrid -- 6.3 8.0 -- 5.1 5.3 8.0

Milan -- -- 5.9 4.1 3.2 2.9 3.1

Florence 2.9 3.8 4.7 -- -- -- --

Naples 3.3 3.5 5.3 4.8 4.8 3.8 3.8

Central & eastern

Europe

Gdansk 2.1 2.1 3.8 4.3 3.8 3.7 4.8

Warsaw -- 2.5 3.2 2.7 1.9 3.4 4.9

Krakow 1.9 2.9 3.4 2.9 2.2 2.9 2.4

Vienna 2.7 2.6 4.4 3.5 3.2 3.0 2.1

Leipzig -- 1.9 3.5 3.9 3.7 3.1 4.4

Augsburg 2.1 3.1 4.0 4.7 4.2 4.3 --

B. Skilled craftsmen

1500-

1550-

1600-

1650-

1700-

1750-

1800-

Northwestern Europe

London 5.0 6.9 11.3 14.5 14.7 17.8 28.9

Southern England 4.2 5.1 6.1 8.4 10.4 12.6 22.0

Amsterdam 4.5 7.0 10.4 11.9 11.7 11.9 12.1

Antwerp 5.2 10.3 12.6 11.8 11.5 11.5 12.8

Paris 4.4 9.0 10.6 11.0 8.2 9.3 16.4

Southern Europe

Valencia 6.5 8.5 10.5 10.3 8.6 7.6 --

Madrid 6.2 12.5 20.1 15.1 11.6 10.7 16.5

Milan -- -- 10.5 8.0 6.1 5.4 6.2

Florence 5.3 7.5 10.6 -- -- -- --

Naples 6.8 5.5 7.8 -- 5.9 5.7 6.6

Central & eastern

Europe

Gdansk 2.8 4.7 6.4 7.7 6.7 5.2 8.0

Warsaw -- 3.6 5.6 4.3 5.3 7.4 10.9

Krakow 3.8 5.2 4.2 4.1 3.3 3.8 5.2

Vienna 4.0 3.9 5.5 5.2 4.8 4.8 3.2

Leipzig 2.9 3.3 6.8 7.0 6.2 5.0 6.7

Augsburg 3.5 4.2 5.4 6.5 6.0 5.4 5.8

Source: Allen (2001: 416).

TABLE 2: Grain wages of unskilled and skilled building workers in Europe,

1500-1849 (kilograms of grain per day)

A. Unskilled laborers

1500-

1550-

1600-

1650-

1700-

1750-

1800-

Wheat

Southern England 10.1 6.3 4.0 5.4 8.0 7.0 8.6

Antwerp 8.8 7.2 7.7 7.4 9.8 9.6 --

Paris 6.8 4.9 6.0 7.2 7.2 6.0 8.4

Valencia/Madrid 10.7 7.4 6.3 7.6 8.6 4.8 --

Florence/Milan 4.7 3.4 4.4 6.1 5.2 3.3 2.8

Rye

Amsterdam 10.3 8.6 11.5 13.3 17.8 14.0 10.7

Krakow 48.7 27.9 15.7 18.7 22.7 23.0 --

Vienna 18.6 7.6 9.9 9.0 8.0 7.0 3.1

Leipzig/Augsburg 9.6 5.6 6.0 9.5 8.4 6.1 5.8

B. Skilled craftsmen

1500-

1550-

1600-

1650-

1700-

1750-

1800-

Wheat

Southern England 16.9 9.4 6.9 8.0 11.8 10.6 13.0

Antwerp 15.3 12.6 12.7 12.2 16.3 16.1 --

Paris 10.7 8.0 9.6 11.5 11.5 10.8 13.9

Valencia/Madrid 16.4 12.0 11.5 13.9 16.1 8.5 --

Florence/Milan 8.6 6.8 8.8 11.8 9.9 6.2 5.6

Rye

Amsterdam 15.0 12.8 16.6 18.7 23.4 18.1 14.1

Krakow 97.4 50.0 19.4 26.5 34.0 30.2 --

Vienna 27.6 11.5 12.4 13.4 12.0 11.2 4.7

Leipzig/Augsburg 14.6 8.4 9.7 14.9 13.0 8.5 8.3

Sources: Wages from Table 1 deflated by grain prices from Abel (1980: 304-305);

Additional information on grain prices in Spain from Hamilton (1934; 1947).

TABLE 3: Real consumption wages of European unskilled building laborers

(London 1500-49 = 100)

1500-

1550-

1600-

1650-

1700-

1750-

1800-

Northwestern Europe

London 100 85 80 96 110 99 98

Amsterdam 97 74 92 98 107 98 79

Antwerp 98889388928882

Paris 62605960565165

Southern Europe

Valencia 79 63 62 53 51 41 --

Madrid -- 56 51 -- 58 42 --

Florence/Milan 62535751473526

Naples 73 54 69 -- 88 50 33

Central & eastern

Europe

Gdansk 78 50 69 72 73 61 40

Warsaw -- 75 66 72 45 64 82

Krakow 67 74 65 67 58 63 40

Vienna 88 60 61 63 61 50 27

Leipzig --343557534453

Augsburg 625039635550 --

Source: Derived from Allen (2001: 428).

TABLE 4: Urban shares of the population in Europe, 1500-1850 (%)

1500 1600 1700 1800 1850

England & Wales 3.1 5.8 13.3 20.3 40.8

Netherlands 15.8 24.3 33.6 28.8 29.5

Belgium 21.1 18.8 24.3 18.9 20.5

France 4.2 5.9 9.2 8.8 14.5

Spain 6.1 11.4 9.0 11.1 17.3

Italy 12.4 15.1 13.2 14.6 20.3

Poland 0.0 0.4 0.5 2.4 9.3

Austria/Bohemia 1.7 2.1 3.9 5.2 6.7

Germany 3.2 4.1 4.8 5.5 10.8

Europe 5.6 7.6 9.2 10.0 16.7

Note: Based on the percentage of the population living in towns of at least 10,000

inhabitants.

Source: Derived from de Vries (1984: 30, 36, 45).

TABLE 5: Indian silver and grain wages, 1595-1874

A. Northern and western India

Silver wage

(grams per day)

Wheat grain wage

(kg per day)

Rice grain wage

(kg per day)

Unskilled Skilled Unskilled Skilled Unskilled Skilled

1595 0.67 1.62 5.2 12.6 3.1 7.5

1616 0.86 3.0 2.4

1623 1.08 3.8 2.9

1637 1.08 2.37 3.8 8.3 2.9 6.5

1640 1.29 4.5 3.5

1690 1.40 4.3

1874 1.79 5.27 2.5 7.5

B. Southern India

Silver wage

(grams per day)

Rice grain wage

(kg per day)

Unskilled Skilled Unskilled Skilled

1610-13 1.15 5.7

1600-50 1.15 3.2

1680 1.44 2.44 3.9 6.9

1741-50 1.49 2.1

1750 (3.02) (7.56) (4.2) (10.5)

1779 0.86 1.1

1790 1.44 1.8

Sources and notes:

Northern and western India: Silver wages: 1595: Daily wages for unskilled laborers

and skilled craftsmen in Agra from $E

¶OFazl [1595: 123, 132-133, 145-146, 155,

159, 161-162, 235-236, 261-264, 297], following Desai (1978: 56-57).

1616, 1623, 1690: Daily wage for unskilled laborers in Surat derived from monthly

wages of peons from Habib (1978: 379).

1637: Daily wage for unskilled laborers in Agra derived from monthly wages of

peons from Habib (1978: 378). Daily wages for skilled workers in Agra from

Mukerjee (1967: 24, 48).

1640: Daily wage for unskilled laborers in Surat derived from monthly wages of

peons from Foster (1906-27, volume 1634-36: 151).

1874: Daily wages for unskilled and skilled laborers in Agra from Moosvi (1987:

335).

Conversion rates from rupees to silver: 1 rupee was worth 10.78 grams of pure silver

(Habib, 1978: 360-361; Chaudhuri, 1978: 471).

Grain prices: 1595: Grain prices from $E

¶OFazl [1595: 65], noting that a “man” of

1595 was 55.32 lb (Heston, 1977: 393). Rice price 110.62 lb per rupee, wheat price

184.36 lb per rupee.

1616, 1623, 1637, 1640: Grain prices from Moreland (1923: 171) at 65 lbs per rupee

for rice and 82.5 lb per rupee for wheat.

1690: Wheat price from Habib (1978: 373) at 72.40 lb per rupee.

1874: Wheat price from Moosvi (1987: 335) at 33.73 lb per rupee.

Southern India:

Silver wages: 1610-13: Daily wages for unskilled laborers in Golconda based on

wages of servants in Dutch factory from Arasaratnam (1986: 342).

1600-50: Daily wages for unskilled laborers in East Godavari Delta based on earnings

of weavers from Brennig (1986: 348).

1680: Daily wages for unskilled and skilled laborers in East Godavari Delta based on

earnings of skilled and unskilled weavers from Brennig (1986: 349).

1741-50: Daily wages for unskilled laborers in Madras based on wages of laborers in

scavenging services from Arasaratnam (1986: 343).

1750: Daily wages of unskilled and skilled laborers in Cuddalore based on earnings of

calico weavers from Parthasarathi (1998: 84, 97).

1779: Daily wages of unskilled laborers in Cuddalore based on earnings of weavers

from Arasaratnam (1980: 269-270).

1790: Daily wages for unskilled labor in Cuddalore based on weavers’ earnings from

Arasaratnam (1980: 269-270) and Ramaswamy, (1985:153)

Conversion rates from pagodas to rupees: East India Company standard rate of 3.2

rupees per pagoda, apart from during the period 1678-1705, when it was 4 rupees per

1 pagoda (Chaudhuri, 1978: 471).

Grain prices: 1610-13: Price of rice at 117 lb per rupee from Arasaratnam (1986: 336-

337).

1600-50, 1680: Rice price 65 lb per rupee from Arasaratnam (1980: 270)

1741-50, 1750: Rice price at 33 lb per rupee from Arasaratnam (1980: 270).

1779, 1790: Rice price at 30 lb per rupee from Arasaratnam (1980: 270).

TABLE 6: An Anglo-Indian comparison of the daily wages of unskilled laborers,

1550-1849

A. Silver wages (grams of silver per day)

Date Southern

England

India Indian wage as %

of English wage

1550-99 3.4 0.7 21

1600-49 4.1 1.1 27

1650-99 5.6 1.4 25

1700-49 7.0 1.5 21

1750-99 8.3 1.2 14

1800-49 14.6 1.8 12

B. Grain wages (kilograms of grain per day)

England India Indian wage as %

Date (wheat) (wheat) (rice, on wheat

equivalent basis)

of English wage

1550-99 6.3 5.2 83

1600-49 4.0 3.8 95

1650-99 5.4 4.3 80

1700-49 8.0 3.2 40

1750-99 7.0 2.3 33

1800-49 8.6 2.5 29

Sources: Tables 1, 2, 5.

Note: Wheat equivalence of rice obtained on calorific basis, multiplying rice grain

wage by 1.5 (Parthasarathi, 1998: 83).

TABLE 7: Daily wage of hired farm laborers in the Yangzi delta, 1573-1850

Late Ming

1573-1644

Mid Qing

1736-1850

Money wage (taels) 0.04 0.033

Silver wage (grams of silver) 1.5 1.2

Grain wage (kg of rice) 3.0 1.5

Notes and sources: Late Ming: Money wage from Li (1998: 94), converted to silver

wage using 1 tael = 37.5 grams of silver, from von Glahn (1996: 133). Money wage

converted to grain wage using rice price of 1 tael per shi of 75 kg from Li (1998: 210,

fn 1). Mid Qing: Money wage from Pomeranz (2000: 319-320), converted to silver

wage using 1 tael = 37.5 grams of silver, from von Glahn (1996: 133). Money wage

converted to grain wage using rice price of 1.67 tael per shi of 75 kg from Pomeranz

(2000: 319).

TABLE 8: An Anglo-Chinese comparison of the daily wage of unskilled laborers,

1550-1849

A. Silver wages (grams of silver per day)

Date Southern

England

Yangzi

delta

Chinese wage as %

of English wage

1550-1649 3.8 1.5 39

1750-1849 11.5 1.2 10

B. Grain wages (kilograms of grain per day)

England Yangzi delta Chinese wage as %

Date (wheat) (rice) (rice, on wheat

equivalent basis)

of English wage

1550-1649 5.2 3.0 4.5 87

1750-1849 7.8 1.5 2.3 29

Sources: Tables 1, 2, 7.

Note: Wheat equivalence of rice obtained on calorific basis, multiplying rice grain

wage by 1.5 (Parthasarathi, 1998: 83).

TABLE 9: Urban shares of the population in China and Europe, 618-1820 (%)

Tang

618-906

Song

960-1279

Ming

1368-1644

Early Qing

1644-1736

Early 19

century

China

All urban 4.7 5.2 6.5 6.8 5.9

Cities > 10,000 3.0 3.7 4.9 6.0 3.8

Europe

Cities > 10,000 -- -- 7.6 9.2 10.0

Source: China: Derived from Rozman (1973: 102, 279-283); Europe: Table 4.

Note: Urbanization ratio for cities of at least 10,000 inhabitants derived from

Rozman’s level 1-4 cities.

TABLE 10: Regional variations in the Chinese urbanization ratio in the mid-19

century (%)

All urban Cities >10,000

Northern China

Shandong 4.4 2.6

Shanxi 4.0 2.0

Henan 5.0 2.2

Northwestern China

Shaanxi 7.3 4.5

Gansu 4.3 2.3

East central China

Anhui 4.0 1.9

Jiangsu 7.4 5.6

Zheijiang 6.1 4.1

Central China

Hubei 6.0 4.0

Hunan 5.2 2.8

Jiangxi 6.3 3.8

Southeastern China

Fujian 8.2 5.3

Guangdong 6.7 5.0

Guangxi 6.1 3.3

Southwestern China

Guizhou 5.8 3.3

Yunnan 4.4 2.5

Sichuan 6.0 3.6

Source: Derived from Rozman (1973: 205, 213, 218, 231, 239, 247).

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