Explaining the Great Divergence: Medium and Message on the Eurasian Land Mass, 1700-1850

Leonard Dudley

Cahiers de recherche from Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques

Abstract: Between 1700 and 1850, per-capita income doubled in Europe while falling in the rest of Eurasia. Neither geography nor economic institutions can explain this sudden divergence. Here the consequences of differences in communications technology are examined. For the first time, there appeared in Europe a combination of a standardized medium (national vernaculars with a phonetic alphabet) and a non-standardized message (competing religious, political and scientific ideas). The result was an unprecedented fall in the cost of combining ideas and burst of productivity-raising innovation. Elsewhere, decreasing standardization of the medium and increasing standardization of the message blocked innovation.

JEL-codes: N1 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2003
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-hpe
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http://hdl.handle.net/1866/506 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: Explaining the great divergence: medium and message on the Eurasian land mass, 1700 - 1850 (2005)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mtl:montde:2003-19

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