Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 16 - Living Standards, Inequality, and Human Development

  • from Part II - Factors Governing Differential Outcomes in the Global Economy
  • Edited by Stephen Broadberry, University of Oxford, Kyoji Fukao, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Modern World
    Published online:
    03 June 2021
    Print publication:
    24 June 2021, pp 442-470

  • Summary

    During the last century and a half, average world income grew tenfold, the composition of output and relative factor returns shifted, and globalization occurred. Consumption per person has grown over time, but more slowly than GDP per capita, as the share of private consumption declined, although this was partly offset by the rising share of public consumption. Income inequality within countries fell from the early to the late twentieth century and has risen in recent decades. Living standards improved across the world, but the gap between the West and the Rest increased, and between-country inequality widened over time until the 1990s, when the trend reversed. Among world inhabitants, income distribution has followed a similar trend, with inequality increasing up to 1990 and declining in the twenty-first century. Impressive long-run gains in human development have taken place in the world without being interrupted by the economic slowdown and globalization backlash during 1914–50.