The Great Divergence
The Great Divergence was not one date or one cause. It was a widening set of regional differences in wages, energy prices, land constraints, institutions, imperial resources, and eventually mechanized production.
The five claims begin with comparable urban wage baskets, then test the mechanisms linking those differences to invention, coal, overseas resources, institutions, and timing.
Key Insights on the Great Divergence
A worker-price reconstruction places London and Amsterdam far above Beijing before 1800.
Northwestern Europe’s urban wage advantage was visible before factories dominated output
In both halves of the eighteenth century, reconstructed building-laborer earnings in London and Amsterdam bought more than three bare-bones family baskets. Beijing’s estimate remained close to one.
The gap is informative because the method makes cities comparable. It remains a modeled urban-sector comparison, not a complete ranking of European and Chinese living standards.
Northwestern Europe’s urban wage advantage was visible before factories dominated output
Modeled full-year building-laborer family earnings were 4.16 times a bare-bones family basket.
subsistence ratioThe London ratio remained well above one in the second half of the century.
subsistence ratioAmsterdam’s reconstruction was slightly above London’s in the first half-century.
subsistence ratioThe Amsterdam ratio also remained above three in the second half-century.
subsistence ratioBeijing’s two half-century estimates sat much closer to the bare-bones threshold.
two reconstructed periodsMethods & sourcesEvidence notes, definitions, and downloads
Evidence standard
The opening comparison reproduces Allen, Murphy, and Schneider’s building-laborer subsistence ratios. A ratio of one means modeled full-time family earnings just covered the authors’ bare-bones family basket.
These are city and occupational reconstructions with assumptions about workdays, family structure, prices, and consumption. They are not GDP, median income, welfare for every worker, or proof of one divergence date.