The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe

Abstract

Unlike most existing textbooks on the economic history of modern Europe, which offer a country-by-country approach, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe rethinks Europe's economic history since 1700 as unified and pan-European, with the material organised by topic rather than by country. This first volume is centred on the transition to modern economic growth, which first occurred in Britain before spreading to other parts of western Europe by 1870. Each chapter is written by an international team of authors who cover the three major regions of northern Europe, southern Europe, and central and eastern Europe. The volume covers the major themes of modern economic history, including trade; urbanization; aggregate economic growth; the major sectors of agriculture, industry and services; and the development of living standards, including the distribution of income. The quantitative approach makes use of modern economic analysis in a way that is easy for students to understand.

Late-life mortality plateaus through error, not evolution

“…The pattern of late--life mortality deceleration shown in Fig 1a (pink line) 4 results from random errors generated at half this rate. However, birth certificate data in the Barbi et al data constitute hand--written records generated by a cohort with 32% literacy rates [4] and 9.6 months of education on average [5]. 75…”

Plane inclinations: A critique of hypothesis and model choice in Barbi et al

“…The pattern of late-life mortality deceleration shown in Fig 1A (pink line) results from random errors generated at half this rate. However, birth certificate data in the Barbi and colleagues data constitute hand-written records generated by a cohort with 32% literacy rates [5] and 9.6 months of education on average [6]. For error-generated late-life plateaus to be excluded from the data in Barbi and colleagues, this cohort would have to achieve error rates 2- to 1,000-fold lower than that observed in clinical trials.…”