Inequality and Nutritional Transition in Economic History
Inequality and Nutritional Transition in Economic History

Author: Francisco J. Medina-Albaladejo

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-04-13

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1000864510

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Food consumption and nutrition are historically among the most characteristic features of inequality in living standards driven by socioeconomic, gender, generational and geographical reasons. Nutrition directly impacts mortality, life expectancy, height and illness and thus becomes a good indicator of living standards and their evolution over time. However, one issue that remains unresolved is how to measure past diet inequalities with the available sources. This book evaluates nutritional inequalities in Spain from the nineteenth century to the present day. It explores the socioeconomic, gender, generational and geographical variations in food consumption and nutrition in Spain during this period. Deriving historical data on nutrition and diet has always been difficult due to issues with available sources. This book adopts a multi-dimensional approach and two complementary methodologies capable of presenting a more comprehensive picture: the first analyses diets based on primary sources, while the second examines the effect of nutritional inequalities on biological living standards, with special emphasis on average height. This combination allows for greater precision than previous studies on the impacts of food inequality. This book will be of significant interest to scholars from different academic branches, especially historians, economic historians and historians of science, economists, and also doctors, endocrinologists, paediatricians, anthropologists, nutritionists and expert in cooperation and development.

Evolving Human Nutrition
Evolving Human Nutrition

Author: Stanley J. Ulijaszek

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-10-18

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 0521869161

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Exploration of changing human nutrition from evolutionary and social perspectives and its influence on health and disease, past and present.

Communities in Action
Communities in Action

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2017-04-27

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 0309452961

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In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

The Sustainability and Development of Ancient Economies
The Sustainability and Development of Ancient Economies

Author: Clement A. Tisdell

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-07-07

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1000910628

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Drawing on modern economic theory, this book provides new insights into the economic development of ancient economies and the sustainability of their development. The book pays particular attention to the economics of hunting and gathering societies and their diversity. New ideas are presented about theories of the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture, including Childe’s theory of this development. The Agricultural Revolution was a major contributor to economic development because in most cases, it generated an economic surplus. However, as shown, income inequality was a necessary condition for the use of this surplus to promote economic development and to avoid the Malthusian population trap. This inequality was evident in the successful operation of the palatial economies of the Minoan and Mycenaean states. Nevertheless, some post-agricultural economies proved to be unsustainable, and they ‘mysteriously’ disappeared. This happened in the case of the Silesian Únětice culture and population. Economic and ecological reasons for this are suggested. The nature of economic development altered with increased trade, the use of barter, and subsequently the supply of money to facilitate this trade. These developments are examined in the context of the palatial economies of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Elsewhere, multinational business made a substantial contribution to the economic growth of Phoenicia, where international trade was not determined by its natural resource endowments. Thus, Phoenician economic exchange and development provides a different set of insights. The book makes an important contribution to the understanding of the evolution of human societies and will therefore be of interdisciplinary interest including economists (especially economic historians), anthropologists and sociologists, some archaeologists, and historians.

The Age of Global Economic Crises
The Age of Global Economic Crises

Author: Juan Manuel Matés-Barco

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-06-02

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1000886778

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The frequency and repetition of economic crises over the last hundred years demands an analysis that allows us to discover the root causes of these situations and the problems they have generated in the world economy. This book investigates these cycles throughout the 20th and the early 21st century. Economic crises can be the result of political or military conflict, but they have also been the consequence of bad practices, unbridled speculation, excessive greed, or poor management by the rulers and leaders of nations. The contributors to this volume analyse the causes and consequences of economic crises from the Great Depression to the present day, incorporating post-World War II reconstruction, the oil crisis of the 1970s and the “lost” Latin American decade of the 1980s, among others. This longer-term view allows the book to provide insights into understanding economic cycles in the long run, not just at a specific moment in time, and the ways in which they have spread internationally. This historical analysis also helps to shed new light on the current Covid-impacted situation, as it provides another reading of the main crises of recent centuries and their causes and consequences, as well as the measures and policies adopted to overcome the difficulties. This book will be of significant interest to readers in economic history, business history, politics, and economics and history more broadly.

The Economy of Classical Athens
The Economy of Classical Athens

Author: Emmanouil M. L. M.L. Economou

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-10-06

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 1000984036

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In parallel to the development of democracy, the Athenians of the Classical period established a series of sophisticated economic institutions for the time through which they developed a maritime and commercially oriented economy. This book provides a thorough analysis of this transformation and the functioning of the Athenian economy during the Classical period. Through the approach of New Institutional Economics (NIE), the book explores the establishment of key institutions including property rights protection, the legal protection of commercial contracts, prices determined by the forces of supply and demand, institutions against profiteering, banking services, the provision of loans through interest rates, consumer credit, insurance companies and a (primitive) version of joint-stock companies. Furthermore, the book focuses on the structure of the public sector, on how the state budget was determined and on how decisions on public revenues and expenditures were made. It also provides an integrated and detailed analysis of the social welfare policies that were implemented through the provision of a variety of public goods in Classical Athens. Moreover, it focuses on a series of socio-economic aspects such as the social status of women, slaves and foreigners and the viewpoints of prominent Athenian philosophers regarding economic organization. Finally, the book investigates whether an Athenian economic-political model of governance, based on a combination of advanced economic institutions (of free market type logic, even if in a primordial form) and direct democracy principles, can provide any lessons for modern societies. The book will be of great interest to readers of the economy, history and society of Ancient Greece as well as economic historians, ancient historians and policymakers more broadly.

The Political Economy of Interwar Foreign Investment
The Political Economy of Interwar Foreign Investment

Author: Jerzy Łazor

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-04-30

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1040028063

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France was interwar Poland’s main ally, and the biggest source of the country’s foreign investment. The two roles were closely connected: Paris used its position in Warsaw to win preferential treatment for its firms, while Polish authorities depended on France to finance their modernization policies and military spending. The relationship’s asymmetric character bred conflict, and in the 1930s dissenting voices compared French actions in Poland to imperialism and colonial expansion. This book untangles the complex mix of economics, policy, and politics in Franco-Polish relations. Based on government and company-level sources, it evaluates the part played by French capital in Poland and discovers the mechanisms ruling French FDI and public loans. Exploring case studies of specific sectors and themes, it asks questions about the modernizing potential of FDI, interwar economic imperialism, the workings of asymmetric investment, and the interactions between investments and politics. Understanding the unequal footing of Warsaw and Paris, it goes beyond imperialistic interpretations, and examines the leeway available to the weaker partner of the relationship. The book contributes to economic history of Central and Eastern Europe, and, more generally, to our understanding of the position of peripheral countries in the interwar global system.

Industry and Development in Argentina
Industry and Development in Argentina

Author: Marcelo Rougier

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-02-27

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 1000838323

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This book explores the twists and turns in Argentina’s modern economic history and the debates that raged there around a problem common to all former colonies: how to achieve a level of economic growth for its population in a world characterized by unequal economic relations between the industrialized nations of the north and the commodity producers of the south. This new perspective examines the history of ideas surrounding industrialization and economic development in Argentina, drawing on a rigorous investigation of multiple sources. It demonstrates Argentina’s role as a laboratory for and disseminator of ideas that would eventually become the common property of all the developing world. Influential thinkers such as Raúl Prebisch and Aldo Ferrer, leading figures in twentieth century Latin American economic thought, developed important ideas such as unequal international trade relations, the promise and limits of Import Substitution Industrialization, the role of the state in the development of a national capitalism. These were the forerunners of similar concerns in other countries in Latin America and elsewhere in the world. The book will be of interest to historians, economists, sociologists of economic development, and related disciplines concerned with questions of global economic inequality.

Property, Power and the Growth of Towns
Property, Power and the Growth of Towns

Author: Catherine Casson

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-05-05

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1000876772

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Local enterprise, institutional quality and strategic location were of central importance in the growth of medieval towns. This book, comprising a study of 112 English towns, emphasises these key factors. Downstream locations on major rivers attracted international trade, and thereby stimulated the local processing of imports and exports, while the early establishment of richly endowed religious institutions funnelled agricultural rental income into a town, where it was spent on luxury goods produced by local craftsmen and artisans, and on expensive, long-running building schemes. Local entrepreneurs who recognised the economic potential of a town developed residential suburbs which attracted wealthy residents. Meanwhile town authorities invested in the building and maintenance of bridges, gates, walls and ditches, often with financial support from wealthy residents. Royal lordship was also an advantage to a town, as it gave the town authorities direct access to the king and bypassed local power-brokers such as bishops and earls. The legacy of medieval investment remains visible today in the streets of important towns. Drawing on rentals, deeds and surveys, this book also examines in detail the topography of seven key medieval towns: Bristol, Gloucester, Coventry, Cambridge, Birmingham, Shrewsbury and Hull. In each case, surviving records identify the location and value of urban properties, and their owners and tenants. Using statistical techniques, previously applied only to the early modern and modern periods, the book analyses the impact of location and type of property on property values. It shows that features of the modern property market, including spatial autocorrelation, were present in the middle ages. Property hot-spots of high rents are also identified; the most valuable properties were those situated between the market and other focal points such transport hubs and religious centres, convenient for both, but remote from noise and pollution. This book takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on expertise from the disciplines of economics and history. It will be of interest to historians and to social scientists looking for a long-run perspective on urban development.

Macroeconomic Inequality from Reagan to Trump
Macroeconomic Inequality from Reagan to Trump

Author: Lance Taylor

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-08-20

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 1108494633

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An innovative approach to measuring inequality providing the first full integration of distributional and macro level data for the US.