social culture and development：a unified explaination for the great divergence
Recently published research attempting to explain the Great Divergence mainly focuses on geography, technological progress, and international trade. However, we do not believe these are its only, nor its most basic causes. Instead, we believe that the ‘social culture’ of a country or a region is an alternative one as the most fundamental reason, and it incorporates these other causes hence providing a reasonable unified explanation. This paper is mainly based on a very simple two-sector benchmark model to simulate the economic characteristics of England and the Yangzi Delta of China during 1400-1850. It explores aspects of this transition period, and obtains many meaningful results consistent with unified theory, which is usually based on very complex models.
After 1750 Western Europe escaped into industrialized path,while eastern Asia hovered into a further poorer agricultural path.why did England industrialized first?what was the internal mechanism of the world economy special during 1400 to 1750 to form the Great Divergence?
