The quality of life experienced by people in the past is one of the most important areas of
historical enquiry and the standard of living of populations is one of the leading measures of
the economic performance of nations. Yet how accurate is the information on which these
judgments are based? This collection of essays written by renowned scholars in the fields of
labour wage and welfare history cogently undermine the validity of the data that have for
decades dominated the measurement of these phenomena in Britain Europe and Asia and provided
the statistical backbone for countless descriptions and analyses of economic development
welfare and many other prime subjects in economic and social history.The contributors to this
volume rigorously expose misapprehensions of long-run macroeconomic estimates of the real wage
and provide a host of improved methods and data for revising and rejecting them. This volume is
essential reading for anyone interested in economic and social history economics and the
application of statistical methods to historical evidence.
