Wages, Prices, and Living Standards in China, Japan, and Europe, 1738-1925.

Abstract

The paper develops data on the history of wages and prices in China from the eighteenth\ncentury to the twentieth. These data are used to compare Beijing, Canton, Suzhou and\nShanghai to leading cities in Europe, India, and Japan in terms of nominal wages, the cost of\nliving, and the standard of living. In the eighteenth century, the real income of building\nworkers in Asia was similar to that of workers in the backward parts of Europe and far behind\nthat of workers in the leading economies in northwestern Europe. Industrialization led to\nrising real wages in Europe and Japan. Real wages declined in China in the eighteenth and\nearly nineteenth centuries and rose slowly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth. There\nwas little cumulative change in the standard of living of workers in Beijing, Canton, and\nlower Yangzi cities for two hundred years. The income disparities of the early twentieth\ncentury were due to long run stagnation in China combined with economic development in\nJapan and Europe.