Economic Conditions in Early Modern Bengal: A Contribution to the Divergence Debate

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050710000094
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 179-194
• 关键词: great divergence; INDIA; industrialization; 19th-century; 18th-century; industry

摘要

This article contributes to the debate on relative levels of living in the early modem world by estimating the income and probable range of income growth in Bengal before European colonization. The exercise yields two conclusions, (a) average income in Bengal was significantly smaller than that in contemporary Western Europe, and (b) there is insufficient basis to infer either growth or decline in average income in the eighteenth century.