please see the file uploaded. the highlighted paragraph is the assigned readings with questions and answers. you can click on the assigned reading topic LINKS to take you to the actual reading. the 4th reading is not there I uploaded it in files to read it. STRICTLY USE ONLY THESE READINGS AND NOTHING SECONDARY. ONLY THE 4 RESOURCES THAT ARE ASSIGNED YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ IN ORDER TO ANSWER THE 3 QUESTIONS,, NOTHING ELSE AT ALL!
You should read the discussion questions before tackling the assigned readings. They will help you get your bearings and focus your attention on key points. However, you should not read by skimming the articles looking for the “answers” to the questions. Most of the readings are challenging and cannot be skimmed. Moreover, your understanding of the readings, and how well you answer the discussion questions, will depend on how well you have assimilated the previously assigned readings and learned from (and retained) the main ideas discussed in previous classes.
Please write the paper in a question and answer format—i.e. copying and discussing each of the numbered questions in turn. Each numbered question will often consist of several sub-questions. Regard these as attempts on my part to explain different aspects of a single question. They should not necessarily be answered separately—indeed it would often not make sense to do so. Do not write an introduction or conclusion to the paper as a whole.
10. M June 14 [panel 1] Explaining the origins of growth and the “great divergence”
source1: Stephen Broadberry (2015) “Accounting for the great divergence”
source2: Justin Lin (1995) “The Needham Puzzle: Why the Industrial Revolution Did Not Originate in China” Economic Development and Cultural Change 43(2): 269-292
source3: Walter Scheidel (2021) “The road from Rome” Aeon 15 April 2021 the source link:
https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-fall-of-the-roman-empire-paved-the-road-to-modernity
source 4: Course Notes on Growth
Notes: Stephen Broadberry is a professor of economic history at Oxford, Justin Yifu Lin is a former World Bank chief economist and the founding director of the China Center for Economic Research in Beijing, and Walter Scheidel is a professor of a bunch of things at Stanford.
The course notes on growth handout provides more background to the issues in this section of the course, roughly units 9-14. I do not ask any specific questions on it but I expect you to be familiar with the concepts and information in the notes, and for your answers to take these concepts and facts into account where relevant.
1) When and why, according to Broadberry, did the North Sea area (Britain and Holland) pull ahead of southern Europe and east Asia in terms of GDP per capita (i.e. intensive growth—see course notes)? On the basis of the information Broadberry and Nunn (week 8) provide, what factors can you infer were the most important in driving the “great” and “European little” divergences? Which of those might also account for the “Asian little divergence” of the 1800s? What factors influenced intensive versus extensive growth, and in the case of intensive growth, increases in labour (“industrious revolution”) versus labour productivity? [Good answers to these questions will assess explanations in light of the data in the tables at the end of the Broadberry article.]
2) Briefly compare the answers offered by Elvin, Needham and Qian to the question posed in the title of Lin’s article, and indicate why Lin finds each of those answers unpersuasive. What is Lin’s explanation for why technology and productivity advanced faster in China than Europe until the 1300s but fell behind Europe thereafter and why the scientific and industrial revolutions did not start in China?
3) Compare and contrast Scheidel’s explanation for the relative rise of western Europe during the early modern period with that of Broadberry and Lin. Which of these 3 views to you find most cogent and why? Are there facts one raises that the others cannot account for?
NOTE: if you end up requiring more pages to write, for example you are not finished with answering a question with onepage, you can go ahead and expand with an extra page, and I don’t mind paying extra. Also if you already fully answered the question and the is nothing much to add more, you can leave the rest blank and not write a whole page (only if you fully answered the question)
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