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

This book presents the first systematic evidence on long-term trends in global well-being since 1820 for 25 major countries and 8 regions in the world covering more than 80% of the world’s population.

How was life in 1820, and how has it changed since then? This question, which was at the core of How Was Life? Global Well-being since 1820, published by the OECD in 2014, is addressed by this second volume based on a broader perspective.

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.

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.

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.