TY - GEN N2 - China has reemerged as a powerhouse in the global economy, reviving a classic question in economic history: why did sustained economic growth arise in Europe rather than in China?Many favor cultural and environmental explanations of the nineteenth-century economic divergence between Europe and the rest of the world. This book, the product of over twenty years of research, takes a sharply different tack. It argues that political differences which crystallized well before 1800 were responsible both for China's early and more recent prosperity and for Europe's difficulties after the fall of the Roman Empire and during early industrialization.Rosenthal and Wong show that relative prices matter to how economies evolve; institutions can have a large effect on relative prices; and the spatial scale of polities can affect the choices of institutions in the long run. Their historical perspective on institutional change has surprising implications for understanding modern transformations in China and Europe and for future expectations. It also yields insights in comparative economic history, essential to any larger social science account of modern world history. DO - 10.4159/harvard.9780674061293 DO - doi AB - China has reemerged as a powerhouse in the global economy, reviving a classic question in economic history: why did sustained economic growth arise in Europe rather than in China?Many favor cultural and environmental explanations of the nineteenth-century economic divergence between Europe and the rest of the world. This book, the product of over twenty years of research, takes a sharply different tack. It argues that political differences which crystallized well before 1800 were responsible both for China's early and more recent prosperity and for Europe's difficulties after the fall of the Roman Empire and during early industrialization.Rosenthal and Wong show that relative prices matter to how economies evolve; institutions can have a large effect on relative prices; and the spatial scale of polities can affect the choices of institutions in the long run. Their historical perspective on institutional change has surprising implications for understanding modern transformations in China and Europe and for future expectations. It also yields insights in comparative economic history, essential to any larger social science account of modern world history. T1 - Before and Beyond Divergence :The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe / AU - Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, AU - Wong, Roy Bin, JF - Asian Studies Backlist (2000-2014) eBook Package JF - E-BOOK GESAMTPAKET / COMPLETE PACKAGE 2011 JF - E-BOOK PACKAGE ENGLISH LANGUAGES TITLES 2011 JF - E-BOOK PAKET RECHTSWISSENSCHAFTEN 2011 JF - HUP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013 (Canada) JF - Harvard University Press eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013 EP - ZDB-23-DGG EP - ZDB-23-DGC CN - HC427 LA - eng LA - In English. ID - 1478997 KW - Comparative economics. KW - BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economic History SN - 9780674061293 TI - Before and Beyond Divergence :The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe / LK - https://univsouthin.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780674061293 UR - https://univsouthin.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780674061293 ER -