The quality of life experienced by people in the past is one of the most important areas of historical enquiry, and the standard of living of populations is one of the leading measures of the economic performance of nations. Yet how accurate is the information on which these judgments are based? This collection of essays, written by renowned scholars in the fields of labour, wage and welfare history, cogently undermine the validity of the data that have for decades dominated the measurement of these phenomena in Britain, Europe and Asia, and provided the statistical backbone for countless descriptions and analyses of economic development, welfare and many other prime subjects in economic and social history.
Author(s): John Hatcher, Judy Z. Stephenson
Edition: Hardcover
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 0
Tags: Wages
Front Matter ....Pages i-xiv
Introduction (John Hatcher, Judy Z. Stephenson)....Pages 1-14
Seven Centuries of Unreal Wages (John Hatcher)....Pages 15-69
The Tyranny of Numbers: Are There Acceptable Data for Nominal and Real Wages for Pre-modern China? (Kent Deng, Patrick K. O’Brien)....Pages 71-94
What Is Wrong with the History of Wages: Or the Divide in Economic History—A Reappraisal Suggested by Eighteenth-Century Milan (Luca Mocarelli)....Pages 95-116
In Search of the Average Craftsman: Understanding Skilled Work and Wages in the Early Modern Building Trades and Wider Economy (Judy Z. Stephenson)....Pages 117-141
The Pay of Labourers and Unskilled Men on London Building Sites, 1650–1770 (Judy Z. Stephenson)....Pages 143-163
What Is a Money Wage? Measuring the Earnings of Agricultural Labourers in Early Modern England (Craig Muldrew)....Pages 165-193
Seasonal Patterns of Agricultural Day-Labour at Eight English Farms, 1835–1844 (Joyce Burnette)....Pages 195-225
Unreal Wages: Long-Run Living Standards and the ‘Golden Age’ of the Fifteenth Century (John Hatcher)....Pages 227-266
Cash, Wages, and the Economy of Makeshifts in England, 1650–1800 (Craig Muldrew, Steven King)....Pages 267-306
Back Matter ....Pages 307-318
