How was life in 1820 and how has it improved since then? What are the long-term trends in global well-being? Trends in real GDP per capita may not fully reflect changes in other dimensions of well-being, such as life expectancy, educational attainment, personal security, and gender inequality. The product of collaboration between the OECD, the OECD Development Centre, and the CLIOINFRA project, this report represents the work of a group of economic historians to systematically chart long-term changes in the dimensions of global wellbeing and inequality, making use of the best sources and expertise currently available and the most recent research carried out within the discipline. The historical evidence reviewed in the report is organized on ten different dimensions of well-being that mirror those used by the OECD in its report, How's Life? (www.oecd.org/howslife): per capita GDP, real wages, educational attainment, life expectancy, height, personal security, political institutions, environmental quality, income inequality, and gender inequality

How's life? The answer can depend on the region in which you live. Many factors that influence people's well-being are local issues, such as employment, access to health services, pollution, and security. Policies that take into account the regional differences hidden within national averages can therefore have a greater impact on improving well-being for the country as a whole. This report presents the OECD analytical framework for measuring well-being at the regional level as well as internationally comparable indicators on 9 well-being dimensions for 362 regions across 34 OECD countries. It also provides guidance for all levels of government in using well-being measures to design policies to better target the specific needs of different communities. Drawing on a variety of practical experiences from OECD regions and cities, the report discusses methodological and political solutions for selecting regional well-being outcome indicators, monitoring the progress of regional well-being over time, and implementing a process of multi-stakeholder engagement to promote social change.

This open access book describes methods of mortality forecasting and discusses possible improvements. It contains a selection of previously unpublished and published papers, which together provide a state-of-the-art overview of statistical approaches as well as behavioural and biological perspectives. The different parts of the book provide discussions of current practice, probabilistic forecasting, the linearity in the increase of life expectancy, causes of death, and the role of cohort factors. The key question in the book is whether it is possible to project future mortality accurately, and if so, what is the best approach. This makes the book a valuable read to demographers, pension planners, actuaries, and all those interested and/or working in modelling and forecasting mortality.

Why are some countries rich and others poor? In 1500, the income differences were small, but they have grown dramatically since Columbus reached America. Since then, the interplay between geography, globalization, technological change, and economic policy has determined the wealth and poverty of nations. The industrial revolution was Britain's path breaking response to the challenge of globalization. Western Europe and North America joined Britain to form a club of rich nations by pursuing four polices-creating a national market by abolishing internal tariffs and investing in transportation, erecting an external tariff to protect their fledgling industries from British competition, banks to stabilize the currency and mobilize domestic savings for investment, and mass education to prepare people for industrial work. Together these countries pioneered new technologies that have made them ever richer. Before the Industrial Revolution, most of the world's manufacturing was done in Asia, but industries from Casablanca to Canton were destroyed by western competition in the nineteenth century, and Asia was transformed into 'underdeveloped countries' specializing in agriculture. The spread of economic development has been slow since modern technology was invented to fit the needs of rich countries and is ill adapted to the economic and geographical conditions of poor countries. A few countries - Japan, Soviet Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, and perhaps China - have, nonetheless, caught up with the West through creative responses to the technological challenge and with Big Push industrialization that has achieved rapid growth through investment coordination. Whether other countries can emulate the success of East Asia is a challenge for the future. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

World Inequality Report 2022 is the most authoritative and comprehensive account of global trends in inequality, providing cutting-edge information about income and wealth inequality and also pioneering data about the history of inequality, gender inequality, environmental inequalities, and trends in international tax reform and redistribution.

Rising densities of human settlements, migration and transport to reduce distances to market, and specialization and trade facilitated by fewer international divisions are central to economic development. The transformations along these three dimensions density, distance, and division are most noticeable in North America, Western Europe, and Japan, but countries in Asia and Eastern Europe are changing in ways similar in scope and speed. 'World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography' concludes that these spatial transformations are essential, and should be encouraged. The conclusion is not without controversy. Slum-dwellers now number a billion, but the rush to cities continues. Globalization is believed to benefit many, but not the billion people living in lagging areas of developing nations. High poverty and mortality persist among the world's 'bottom billion', while others grow wealthier and live longer lives. Concern for these three billion often comes with the prescription that growth must be made spatially balanced. The WDR has a different message: economic growth is seldom balanced, and efforts to spread it out prematurely will jeopardize progress. The Report: documents how production becomes more concentrated spatially as economies grow. proposes economic integration as the principle for promoting successful spatial transformations. revisits the debates on urbanization, territorial development, and regional integration and shows how today's developers can reshape economic geography.

The first comprehensive history of the Turkish economy The population and economy of the area within the present-day borders of Turkey has consistently been among the largest in the developing world, yet there has been no authoritative economic history of Turkey until now. In Uneven Centuries, Şevket Pamuk examines the economic growth and human development of Turkey over the past two hundred years. Taking a comparative global perspective, Pamuk investigates Turkey’s economic history through four periods: the open economy during the nineteenth-century Ottoman era, the transition from empire to nation-state that spanned the two world wars and the Great Depression, the continued protectionism and import-substituting industrialization after World War II, and the neoliberal policies and the opening of the economy after 1980. Making use of indices of GDP per capita, trade, wages, health, and education, Pamuk argues that Turkey’s long-term economic trends cannot be explained only by immediate causes such as economic policies, rates of investment, productivity growth, and structural change. Uneven Centuries offers a deeper analysis of the essential forces underlying Turkey’s development—its institutions and their evolution—to make better sense of the country’s unique history and to provide important insights into the patterns of growth in developing countries during the past two centuries.