Papers by Bas van Leeuwen
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2014
Italian Economic Journal
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Asia and the Global Economy, 2022
Cambridge University Press, 2015
In recent years, interest in the welfare levels of ancient economies has increased considerably, ... more In recent years, interest in the welfare levels of ancient economies has increased considerably, partly in a quest to find the origins of present-day income differences. A popular method for calculating income differences is the use of subsistence ratios that indicate whether the wage of an unskilled male labourer is sufficient to purchase enough products and services to maintain his family. In this paper, we present new estimates for the southeastern part of Han China and modify existing estimates for the eastern half of the Roman Empire (Egypt and Syria) and Babylonia to make them comparable. We find that the agricultural regions of Egypt and Babylonia experienced substantially lower subsistence ratios than Syria and southeastern Han China. We find that the main reason for the difference was that unskilled male workers belonged to the higher income brackets in southeastern Han China and Syria. This finding can be explained by the small group of free wage workers in these societies...
Australian Economic History Review, 2021
Despite the existence of a rich literature on Chinese partial household division, there is still ... more Despite the existence of a rich literature on Chinese partial household division, there is still limited evidence of its effect on land and capital accumulation and well‐being. In this study, contrary to the dominant view, we find that household property size peaked around 1800s–1830s, suggesting that equal‐share system did not necessarily lead to land fragmentation. We find evidence that this rise in farm sizes is related to the opposing forces of increased well‐being and increased inequality.
Australian Economic History Review, 2019
Despite being considered a prime indicator of economic change, occupational structure does not fi... more Despite being considered a prime indicator of economic change, occupational structure does not figure prominently in the debate regarding the economic development of early modern China. One reason is the virtual absence of occupational data before the start of the twentieth century. In this paper, we make a first attempt to sketch the occupational structure between ca. 1640 and 1952 using a variety of unique and rather fragmented occupational sources. We find that the share of persons working in agriculture remained stable until the mid-nineteenth century, with the share in industry showing some growth thereafter.
We provide annual estimates of GDP for England between 1270 and 1700 and for Great Britain betwee... more We provide annual estimates of GDP for England between 1270 and 1700 and for Great Britain between 1700 and 1870, constructed from the output side. The GDP data are combined with population estimates to calculate GDP per capita. We find English per capita income growth of 0.20 per cent per annum between 1270 and 1700, although growth was episodic, with the strongest growth during the Black Death crisis of the fourteenth century and in the second half of the seventeenth century. For the period 1700-1870, we find British per capita income growth of 0.48 per cent, broadly in line with the widely accepted Crafts/Harley estimates. This modest trend growth in per capita income since 1270 suggests that, working back from the present, living standards in the late medieval period were well above "bare bones subsistence". This can be reconciled with modest levels of kilocalorie consumption per head because of the very large share of pastoral production in agriculture.
Oxbow Books, Jun 30, 2021
Routledge eBooks, May 15, 2018
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2015
This is a definitive new account of Britain's economic evolution from a backwater of Europe i... more This is a definitive new account of Britain's economic evolution from a backwater of Europe in 1270 to the hub of the global economy in 1870. A team of leading economic historians reconstruct Britain's national accounts for the first time right back into the thirteenth century to show what really happened quantitatively during the centuries leading up to the Industrial Revolution. Contrary to traditional views of the earlier period as one of Malthusian stagnation, they reveal how the transition to modern economic growth built on the earlier foundations of a persistent upward trend in GDP per capita which doubled between 1270 and 1700. Featuring comprehensive estimates of population, land use, agricultural production, industrial and service-sector production and GDP per capita, as well as analysis of their implications, this will be an essential reference for anyone interested in British economic history and the origins of modern economic growth more generally.
Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences
A gap in the census surveys for England and Wales between 1921 and 1951 hinders the analysis of t... more A gap in the census surveys for England and Wales between 1921 and 1951 hinders the analysis of their labour structure for the interwar years. The present article uses a dataset containing occupational titles from the National Register – a census-like enumeration of 1939, recently digitised by the genealogy service ‘Find My Past’ – which was previously assigned numerical codes (the pst system). The study expands the existing data analysis on the occupational structure of England and Wales by introducing three further variables: the gender of the surveyed individuals, their age, and the shares of the inactive population per gender and age groups.
Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, 2022
The Economic History of Central, East and South-East Europe, 2020
The introduction of coinage in Asia Minor and the Greek World The introduction of coinage in the ... more The introduction of coinage in Asia Minor and the Greek World The introduction of coinage in the Near East by Alexander the Great The introduction of coinage in China The role of trust
Explorations in Economic History, 2014
Explorations in Economic History, 2014
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Papers by Bas van Leeuwen
Efficient market structures are agreed by most economists to serve as evidence of economic prosperity, and to be prerequisites for further economic growth. However, this is the first study to examine market performance as a whole, over such a large time period. Presenting a hitherto unknown and inaccessible corpus of data from ancient Babylonia, this international set of contributors are for the first time able to offer an in-depth study of market performance over a period of 2,500 years.
The contributions focus on the market of staple crops, as they were crucial goods in these societies. Over this entire period, all papers provide a similar conceptual and methodological framework resting on a common definition of market performance combined with qualitative and quantitative analyses resting on new and improved price data. In this way, the book is able to combine analysis of the Babylonian period with similar work on the Roman, Early-and Late Medieval and Early Modern period.
Bringing together input from assyriologists, ancient historians, economic historians and economists, this volume will be crucial reading for all those with an interest in ancient history, economic history and economics.
This is part of a research project conducted at the VU University (Vrije Universiteit) Amsterdam, funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) on "The efficiency of markets in Pre-Industrial Societies: the case of Babylonia, 485-61 BC".
The lack of direct evidence on the amount of silver in circulation, however, puts a serious limitation for historical research on the monetary development in ancient societies. In this paper we attempt to remedy this by applying a model to available staple price data from first millennium BC Babylonia to estimate the changes of the amount of silver in the economy. In order to do this, in section 2 we introduce a model that establishes a relationship between prices and the quantity of silver in circulation. This establishes the relation between the price level of a staple crop and the growth of the amount of silver in the economy. In section 3, using our model, we calculate the amount of silver in circulation. We find that this decreases considerably, which possibly explains the rise in purchasing power of silver observed in the second century BC. In section 4 we cross-check our model by applying it to medieval and early modern England. We find that our estimates of silver in circulation are close to the independent estimates that exist in the literature. Remarkably, we also find that the influx of Spanish silver in England in the sixteenth century was not as large as is often assumed.