Editors’ Introduction

Research in Economic History is a refereed journal, specializing in economic history, in the form of a book. We publish articles that follow the standard formats of economics journals, but we can also accommodate historical narratives and articles that primarily present newly constructed data sets. This volume is particularly rich in the last.

Paul Caruana-Galizia introduces new series for nominal wages, consumer prices, and real wages in Algeria and Tunisia from 1847 through 1913, constructed from archival sources. Based on these series and existing series for Egypt and Syria, he concludes that real wages converged across these countries over the nineteenth century, but did not generally rise. This is a somewhat surprising result, as some historical literature and estimates of real GDP per capita suggest living standards in these countries were improving.