Robert Allen
Ph.D., Harvard University, FBA,
Professor of Economic History
College or Institution: Nuffield College
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Research Interests
Summary: Economic history.
My research aims to understand the process of economic growth. Why are some countries rich and others poor? This research is focused on measuring changes in living standards across Europe and Asia between 1600 and 1900, measuring and explaining productivity growth in English agriculture between 1300 and 1800, understanding the origins of modern technology and research and development in the industrial revolution, and studying the impact of imperialism on Asian economic growth between 1870 and 1940. I am also investigating the environmental sustainability of economic growth. I am engaged on a project to explain why bowhead whales in the eastern Arctic were hunted to extinction between 1600 and 1800.
Courses Taught at the University
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Research Group(s)
Recent Working Papers
- The Industrial Revolution in Miniature: The Spinning Jenny in Britain, France, and India (2007)
- Wages, Prices, and Living Standards in China, Japan, and Europe, 1738-1925 (2007)
- Pessimism Preserved: Real Wages in the British Industrial Revolution (2007)
- How Prosperous were the Romans? Evidence from Diocletian`s Price Edict (301 AD) (2007)
- Engel`s Pause: A Pessimist`s Guide to the British Industrial Revolution (2007)
- see more working papers by this author
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Category: Faculty