Standards of living in eighteenth century China: regional differences, temporal trends, and incomplete evidence / Kenneth Pomeranz -- Farm labour productivity in Jiangnan, 1620-1850 / Li Bozhong -- Wages, inequality, and pre-industrial growth in Japan, 1727-1894 / Osamu Saito -- Agriculture,...

It is conventionally assumed that the pre-modern working year was fixed and that consumption varied with changes in wages and prices. This is challenged by the twin theories of the ‘industrious' revolution and the consumer revolution, positing a longer working year as people earned surplus...