gareth.jones Section name School of Management The convergence in global living standards from 1870 to 1914 by Andrew Godley 2000/2001 423 Henley Business School University of Reading Whiteknights Reading RG6 6AA United Kingdom www.henley.reading.ac.uk The Convergence in Global Living Standards from 1870 to 1914 Dr Andrew Godley, Department of Economics, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AA UK Tel.: ++44 (0) 118 987 5123 (x4051) Fax.: ++44 (0) 118 975 0236 E-mail:
[email protected] Word Count: 8,284 (including all notes, tables, charts and abstract). Draft document, not to be cited without author’s permission. 1 The Convergence in Global Living Standards from 1870 to 1914 ABSTRACT The convergence debate has focused primarily on postwar trends, with pre-1914 convergence until recently understood as being less strong. Newly derived estimates of global real wages have, however, suggested that convergence before 1914 was more dramatic than at any time since. This paper begins by considering how the understanding of late nineteenth century global convergence depends on which series of estimates is used. While each has its weaknesses, the paper presents a new dataset which seeks to capture trends in international consumption by tracking the diffusion of the sewing machine from 1870 to 1914. The results offer support for the view that convergence was stronger before 1914 than previously believed, but suggest that its determinants may have been broader than currently thought. I. INTRODUCTION Historians have long accepted that large parts of the world economy experienced some degree of convergence in the decades after 1850, although both its geographical spread and the extent to which living standards in the laggards caught up with the leaders have only been hinted at until relatively recently.