Land, Labor and Globalization in the Pre-Industrial Third World

67 Pages Posted: 19 Jul 2000 Last revised: 10 Apr 2022

See all articles by Jeffrey G. Williamson

Jeffrey G. Williamson

Harvard University - Department of Economics, Laird Bell Professor of Economics, Emeritus; Honorary Fellow, University of Wisconsin - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Date Written: July 2000

Abstract

A Third World data base documenting commodity and factor prices 1870-1940 has been collected, yielding annual time series on wage/rental ratios, land/labor ratios, the terms of trade, and other explanatory variables for: Argentina, Burma, Egypt, Japan, Korea, the Punjab, Taiwan, Thailand and Uruguay. These 9 have been added to a previously-collected data base for 10 in the so-called greater Atlantic economy: Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Sweden and the USA. These 19 countries form the panel data base which is used to explore the determinants of wage/rental ratios the world round between 1870 and 1940. The data offer a useful way to identify the impact of globalization on the pre-industrial Third World. This paper finds commodity price convergence to have been bigger in the Third World than the Atlantic economy. It also identifies the sources of a previously-unnoticed but enormous convergence in wage/rental ratios. Commodity price convergence and factor supply responses appear to be an important source of the relative factor price convergence in the Third World, more clearly exposed by the absence of significant industrialization and capital-deepening forces there prior to 1940.

Suggested Citation

Williamson, Jeffrey G., Land, Labor and Globalization in the Pre-Industrial Third World (July 2000). NBER Working Paper No. w7784, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=236652

Jeffrey G. Williamson (Contact Author)

Harvard University - Department of Economics, Laird Bell Professor of Economics, Emeritus ( email )

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