Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe - Couverture rigide

Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent; Wong, R. Bin

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0674057910 ISBN 13 : 9780674057913

Editeur : Harvard University Press, 2021

Synopsis

China has reemerged as a powerhouse in the global economy, reviving a classic question in economic history: why did sustained economic growth arise in Europe rather than in China? Many favor cultural and environmental explanations of the nineteenth-century economic divergence between Europe and the rest of the world. This book, the product of over twenty years of research, takes a sharply different tack. It argues that political differences which crystallized well before 1800 were responsible both for China's early and more recent prosperity and for Europe's difficulties after the fall of the Roman Empire and during early industrialization. Rosenthal and Wong show that relative prices matter to how economies evolve; institutions can have a large effect on relative prices; and the spatial scale of polities can affect the choices of institutions in the long run. Their historical perspective on institutional change has surprising implications for understanding modern transformations in China and Europe and for future expectations. It also yields insights in comparative economic history, essential to any larger social science account of modern world history.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Harvard University Press
• Date d'édition: 2021
• ISBN 10: 0674057910
• ISBN 13: 9780674057913
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 290