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East of Eden: Polish living standards in a European perspective, ca. 1500-1800

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  • Mikolaj Malinowski

Abstract

This research contributes to the debate on economic growth and income inequalities in early modern Europe by estimating real wages expressed in subsistence-ratios in the rural and urban sectors of the Kingdom of Poland. Furthermore, a method of weighting the wages with data on the employment structure is outlined and implemented. A comparison of the Polish-weighted real wages with the English and Italian suggests two waves of supremacy of the North Sea Region. The first divergence occurred prior to the early modern period and the second resumed in the 17th century. The paper incorporates non-wage-earning farmers and agricultural workers paid partially in kind into the analytical framework.

Suggested Citation

  • Mikolaj Malinowski, 2013. "East of Eden: Polish living standards in a European perspective, ca. 1500-1800," Working Papers 0043, Utrecht University, Centre for Global Economic History.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucg:wpaper:0043
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Blondé, Bruno & Hanus, Jord, 2010. "Beyond building craftsmen. Economic growth and living standards in the sixteenth-century Low Countries: the case of 's-Hertogenbosch (1500–1560)," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 179-207, August.
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    9. Allen, Robert C., 2001. "The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 411-447, October.
    10. Angeles, Luis, 2008. "GDP per capita or real wages? Making sense of conflicting views on pre-industrial Europe," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 147-163, April.
    11. Paolo Malanima, 2013. "When did England overtake Italy? Medieval and early modern divergence in prices and wages," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 17(1), pages 45-70, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Piotr Koryś & Maciej Tymiński, 2015. "Occupational structure in the Polish territories at the turn of the 20th (1895-1900) century," Working Papers 2015-09, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    2. Fochesato, Mattia, 2018. "Origins of Europe’s north-south divide: Population changes, real wages and the ‘little divergence’ in early modern Europe," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 91-131.
    3. Nikolaj Malinowski & Jan Luiten van Zanden, 2015. "National income and its distribution in preindustrial Poland in a global perspective," Working Papers 0076, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    4. Jörg Baten & Mikołaj Szołtysek, 2014. "A golden age before serfdom? The human capital of Central-Eastern and Eastern Europe in the 17th-19th centuries," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2014-008, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.

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    Keywords

    Real Wages; Little Divergence; Pre-industrial economic growth; Poland;
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