Rural–urban income disparity: impact of growth,allocative efficiency,and local growth welfare

Historical data of economic development suggest a Kuznets–Williamson type of relationship between economic growth and income disparity. Using China's provincial data, we first try to determine to what extent such a relationship is valid in the urban–rural disparity context. Next, we identify some factors other than economic growth that might have affected urban–rural disparity. In particular, we calculate and compare the inter-sector gross allocation effect (GAE) at the provincial level to discern the impact of labor mobility and allocative efficiency on urban–rural disparity. We also try to evaluate the contribution of local governance to urban–rural disparity by looking into regional differences in effectiveness of economic growth to raise local standard of living. Policy implications of the findings are discussed in the light of China's institutional reforms and development strategies.     

Urbanization and mortality in Britain,c. 1800–50

In the long-running debate over standards of living during the industrial revolution, pessimists have identified deteriorating health conditions in towns as undermining the positive effects of rising real incomes on the ‘biological standard of living’. This article reviews long-run historical relationships between urbanization and epidemiological trends in England, and then addresses the specific question: did mortality rise especially in rapidly growing industrial and manufacturing towns in the period c. 1830–50? Using comparative data for British, European, and American cities and selected rural populations, this study finds good evidence for widespread increases in mortality in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. However, this phenomenon was not confined to ‘new’ or industrial towns. Instead, mortality rose in the 1830s especially among young children (aged one to four years) in a wide range of populations and environments. This pattern of heightened mortality extended between c. 1830 and c. 1870, and coincided with a well-established rise and decline in scarlet fever virulence and mortality. The evidence presented here therefore supports claims that mortality worsened for young children in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, but also indicates that this phenomenon was more geographically ubiquitous, less severe, and less chronologically concentrated than previously argued.     

Deskilling and decline in skill premium during the age of sail: Swedish and Finnish seamen, 1751–1913

The study examines the evolution of skill premium and share at industry level in shipping during the age of sail. We argue that the period from the 1750s to the 1910s represented deskilling for the seamen working in sailing ships. The growth of international trade and shipping during the first era of globalization increased the overall demand for sailors but decreased the relative demand for skilled labor in favor of less skilled ones. This deskilling was associated with a decline in wage inequality, as the premium for high skilled seamen fell relative to mean wages in the shipping industry. The decline in skill premium may have facilitated the growth of trade and shipping, as the relative costs of transport declined. This in turn might have hastened the first era of globalization.     

Missed opportunities? Human welfare in Western Europe and the United States, 1913–1950

GDP suggests that the period 1913–1950 is one of missed opportunities for improving living standards in Europe. However, life in Europe during these years improved significantly, as citizens experienced dramatic declines in mortality, working time and inequality. To measure the contribution of these aspects to broader welfare, I apply a new theoretically-grounded indicator that, contrary to previous measures used in the literature, allows for a direct comparison with GDP across countries and time. I find that income underestimates welfare growth significantly (up to 2.2 percent annually) and that cross-country differences are larger and more persistent than other welfare measures imply. This article calls for a reappraisal of the evolution of living standards during the period 1913–1950 and, more generally, presents an application of a new indicator to measure multi-dimensional welfare in historical contexts.     

Technology transmission in pre-modern China: Evidence from a Chinese clan, 1400–1800

This study examines the intergenerational transmission of technology in historical China by constructing a genealogy dataset of the Huang family from 1400 to 1800. The family specialised in woodblock carving for book production, and their names were documented in these volumes, enabling measurement of technological output. Analysing 902 individuals across 16 generations reveals that carving skills were primarily transmitted from fathers to sons, with little influence from other family members or external artisans. Moreover, the production of books by the Huang family experienced a decline in the early 17th century, potentially attributed to weather shocks and decreased demand for books.     

Founding large charities and community building in the Dutch Republic,c. 1600–1800

In this contribution, we study the founding of large charities for the elderly during the Dutch Republic, demonstrating their number and nature, with an emphasis on how almshouses for the elderly were intricately bound up with the concern to preserve honour. Personal honour, being tied to community honour, formed a vital part of the processes of patronage and corporatism that defined early modern Dutch society. Through almshouse foundations the religious and civic communities to which patrons and clients belonged were strengthened. Within the fragmented religious landscape of the Dutch Republic these charities played an important role in strengthening both mainstream and dissenter communities, while providing a decent old age to Dutch citizens.     

Early globalizations: The integration of Asia in the world economy, 1800–1938

This paper contributes to the debate on globalization and the great divergence with a comprehensive analysis of the integration of Asia in the world market from 1800 to the eve of World War II. We examine the patterns of convergence in prices for a wide range of commodities between Europe and the main Asian countries (India, Indonesia, Japan and China) and we compare them with convergence between Europe and the East Coast of the United States, hitherto the yardstick for the 19th century. Most price convergence occurred before 1870, mainly as a consequence of the abolition of the European trading monopolies with Asia, and, to a lesser extent, the repeal of duties on Atlantic trade. After 1870, price differentials continued to decline thanks to falling freights and to better communication after the lay-out of telegraph cables. There was only little disintegration in the inter-war years.     

Corruption,costs, and family: Chinese capital flight, 1984–2014

Since 1984, the foreign debt of the Peoples' Republic of China has increased at a greater rate than would be explained by changes in the country's current account, foreign direct investment and reserve holdings. This pattern is consistent with large-scale outflow of financial capital, commonly referred to as capital flight. Since 2005, capital flight has accelerated reaching $425 billion (plus or minus $60 billion) in 2014 alone. This study provides three estimates for capital flight from China for the period 1984 through 2014 using both Cuddington's balance of payments and more inclusive residual measures. These measures are adjusted to reflect the legitimate assets of the Chinese banking industry, mis-invoicing of China's trade with its major trading partners (especially Hong Kong), exchange rate changes, and the failure of official debt data to capture certain bank transactions. Based on these estimates, it is concluded that capital controls have little long-term effect on the volume of capital flight, Hong Kong is increasingly a pipeline for capital flight from the mainland, and that ‘traditional’ explanations do not apply to China's capital flight over the last decade. Finally, corruption, transaction costs, and facilitating migration are considered as possible explanations of the recent acceleration of Chinese capital flight.     

The limiting factor: energy,growth, and divergence, 1820–1913

On the basis of a new series on the consumption of traditional and modern sources of energy between 1820 and 1913, this article addresses the start of modern growth and the great divergence on the world scale. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the greater availability of modern energy sources expanded working capacity well beyond the potential of previous agricultural civilizations. Growth of energy consumption rose primarily in western Europe, northern America, and Oceania. As a result, labour productivity rose, leading to an increase in real wages, which was an incentive to replace labour with mechanical engines. The higher energy consumption in these three macro-areas led to global inequality in productive capacity and technology which peaked on the eve of the First World War.     

Globalization,agricultural markets and mass migration: Italy, 1881–1912

Despite the significant attention paid to the current consequences of globalization for migration behavior, there are few historical accounts of the effect of commodity market integration at the local level. We set our paper within the context of the first globalization era, when migration flows were largely unregulated, and highlight how exogenous shocks in agricultural commodity prices influenced international migration flows from Italian provinces between 1881 and 1912. To do this, we construct an index of global price exposure based on the initial provincial agricultural production structures. Our analysis quantifies the contribution of globalization-induced agricultural-price shocks to migration decisions, alongside more traditional explanatory factors such as migrant networks and landholding systems. We find evidence that agricultural-price shocks are positively related to the propensity to migrate, as migration tended to increase in proportion with agricultural commodity prices. This result suggests that liquidity constraints were binding until agricultural incomes reached a certain threshold. These findings can inform our understanding of present-day migration responses in developing countries in the face of even more rapid globalization but higher barriers to legal migration.     

Institutions for the taking: property rights and the settlement of the Cape Colony, 1652–1750

We examine the formation of property rights in land during the early settlement by the Dutch of the Cape Colony at the southern tip of Africa. After its founding in 1652 as a provisioning outpost for ships of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), the colonial government promoted settlement initially by granting land with well-specified and enforced property rights in restricted zones near Cape Town. By 1714 it transitioned to accommodate rapidly expanding settlement by creating a weaker form of property rights, the loan farm, which was imprecisely defined and had limited government enforcement. We develop a profit-maximizing monopsony model to explain the VOC's choice to transition from the better-specified land grant to the less well-specified loan farm. We conclude that the decline in the population size and ability of the Khoikhoi, the Cape's original inhabitants, to organize effective resistance to the Dutch invasion was critical to the transition, as it lowered the costs of private enforcement of settlers’ territorial claims. The choice of property rights thus enabled and encouraged the rapid taking by European settlers of the western Cape of Africa for the expansion of the Dutch colony's pastoral economy.     

Marketization,environmental regulation,and eco-friendly productivity: A Malmquist–Luenberger index for pollution emissions of large Chinese firms

Marketization requires individuals and firms to increase energy efficiency and improve environmental quality, and various levels of governments interested in environmental protection have adopted tough environmental regulations. This paper develops data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure unified efficiency at the firm level by introducing energy utilization and pollution emissions. A Malmquist–Luenberger efficiency model with undesirable output follows radial measurement by directional distance function type. We analyze green productive efficiency in relation to polluting emissions using a large dynamic panel dataset of 229,491 Chinese manufacturing firms from 1998 to 2012. We identify that marketization and environmental regulation both significantly facilitate green productivity. Further, our findings imply that both marketization and regulatory effects weakened from the tenth to the twelfth Five-Year Plans. Regarding effects across ownership type, green total factor productivity (TFP) growth of state-owned enterprises is significantly affected by regulation but not marketization. Private and foreign-owned firms are both significantly affected by marketization and regulation. Regionally, green TFP growth is positively associated with marketization and regulation in central China. East China’s green TFP growth is motivated by marketization, and West China’s green TFP growth is strongly driven by regulation.