LEADER 03703nam 2200637Ia 450 001 9910457822303321 005 20210930173644.0 010 $a0-674-06129-2 024 7 $a10.4159/harvard.9780674061293 035 $a(CKB)2550000000048068 035 $a(OCoLC)754841334 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10491783 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000534359 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11343016 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000534359 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10493862 035 $a(PQKB)10590910 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3300960 035 $a(DE-B1597)178255 035 $a(OCoLC)840437322 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780674061293 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3300960 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10491783 035 $a(EXLCZ)992550000000048068 100 $a20100818d2011 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aBefore and beyond divergence$b[electronic resource] $ethe politics of economic change in China and Europe /$fJean-Laurent Rosenthal, R. Bin Wong 210 $aCambridge, MA $cHarvard University Press$d2011 215 $a1 online resource (291 p.) 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 $a0-674-05791-0 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 245-262) and index. 327 $tFrontmatter --$tContents --$tPreface --$tIntroduction: Miracles, Myths, and Explanations in Economic History --$t1 Space and Politics --$t2 Population, Resources, and Economic Growth --$t3 Formal and Informal Mechanisms for Market Development --$t4 Warfare, Location of Manufacturing, and Economic Growth in China and Europe --$t5 Credit Markets and Economic Change --$t6 Autocrats, War, Taxes, and Public Goods --$t7 Political Economies of Growth, 1500- 1950 --$tConclusion: Findings, Methods, and Implications --$tNotes --$tReferences --$tAcknowledgments --$tIndex 330 $aChina 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. 606 $aComparative economics 607 $aChina$xEconomic conditions 607 $aChina$xEconomic policy 607 $aEurope$xEconomic conditions 607 $aEurope$xEconomic policy 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aComparative economics. 676 $a330.94 686 $aQG 000$2rvk 700 $aRosenthal$b Jean-Laurent$0748809 701 $aWong$b Roy Bin$0751025 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910457822303321 996 $aBefore and beyond divergence$91510484 997 $aUNINA