Escaping Poverty

One of the biggest debates in economic history deals with the Great Divergence. How can we explain that at a certain moment in time (the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) a certain part of the world (the West) escaped from general poverty and became much richer than it had ever been before and th...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Vries, Peer
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: Directory of Open Access Books - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
Description
Summary:One of the biggest debates in economic history deals with the Great Divergence. How can we explain that at a certain moment in time (the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) a certain part of the world (the West) escaped from general poverty and became much richer than it had ever been before and than the rest of the world? Many prominent scholars discussed this question and came up with many different answers. This book provides a systematic analysis of the most important of those answers by means of an analysis of possible explanations in terms of natural resources, labour, capital, the division of labour and market exchange, accumulation and innovation, and as potential underlying determining factors institutions and culture. The author juxtaposes the views of economists / social scientists and of global historians and systematically compares Great Britain and China to illustrate his position.
Item Description:Creative Commons (cc), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
ISBN:9783847101680
9783737001687