The results indicate that living standards in Al-Andalus during the tenth century were high in both absolute & comparative terms. Unskilled workers in Córdoba around 950 & 1000 attained welfare ratios comparable to those observed in Fatimid Egypt & the poorer parts of Europe before the 19th century.
By 1200, real wages declined, particularly for skilled labour, reflecting rising prices & stagnant nominal wages.
This article provides the first systematic estimates of living standards in Al-Andalus (the Muslim-ruled Iberian Peninsula) in 950, 1000, & 1200. Drawing on prices & wages from legal documents and market regulation treatises, it reconstructs real wages and welfare ratios.
The article contributes to debates on the timing of the Great Divergence by documenting another episode of high living standards under non-Western institutions.
This article presents a radical reinterpretation of regional differences under later Old Poor Law in England and Wales 1776-1815 using parish/township-level GIS-mapping of a range of indicators from Parliamentary Reports linked to underlying 1801 and 1811 census population and 1815 wealth measures.
These findings are robust to alternative basket assumptions & are consistent with independent qualitative and quantitative evidence on welfare levels, urbanization, monetary capacity, & aggregate output.