A review of the literature on historical comparisons of levels of development suggests that disparities between now and advanced and lagging countries around 1760 were most likely quite small and, if extreme observations at both ends are excluded, probably nonexistent. When purchasing power...

These notes suggest a methodology that may lead to an ordinal ranking of societies, economies and ethnic groups -- both in the past and present -- on the basis of their work ethos. These rankings may then be employed to test my thesis that work ethos has had an important influence on the pace of...