Reports suggest that between 40 and 60 percent of the population died during the bubonic plague that swept through Europe in the mid-1300s. What accounts for this wide range of estimates?
Wonderful piece. Just a small suggested correction to this line:
“The scarcity of labor increased demand and wages for the survivors.”
Demand didn’t increase. The supply of workers decreased, which decreased the quantity demanded. But since the demand curve for labor is slightly downward sloping, the movement of the supply curve result in higher wages.
There’s not a positive effect on demand, if anything demand fell as the number do consumers died from the plague. How about: “the decreased supply of workers boosted wages for the survivors”?
Ah I meant to say it increased demand for e.g. foreign labor to fill shortages (such as people in rural areas to move into cities)
Does that make sense? How about “The scarcity of labor increased demand for foreign labor and increased wages for the survivors.”? Happy to adjust that in some other way though. Thanks for letting me know!
A really well written article. I think that the Good Doctor himself would have been proud to have it associated with his name. (I read “World Of Carbon” in 1958 while in high school, and am now an 81 year old retired chemist. The Good Doctor was a GOOD writer!)
Wonderful writing. How does one foster strong stastical institutions, especially in places like India or African countries, where state capacity is weak?
During the pandemic I often wondered whether the US was always high on the list not because we actually had per capita more infections but because we actually did a better job of recording.
Wonderful piece. Just a small suggested correction to this line:
“The scarcity of labor increased demand and wages for the survivors.”
Demand didn’t increase. The supply of workers decreased, which decreased the quantity demanded. But since the demand curve for labor is slightly downward sloping, the movement of the supply curve result in higher wages.
There’s not a positive effect on demand, if anything demand fell as the number do consumers died from the plague. How about: “the decreased supply of workers boosted wages for the survivors”?
Thank you so much!
Ah I meant to say it increased demand for e.g. foreign labor to fill shortages (such as people in rural areas to move into cities)
Does that make sense? How about “The scarcity of labor increased demand for foreign labor and increased wages for the survivors.”? Happy to adjust that in some other way though. Thanks for letting me know!
A really well written article. I think that the Good Doctor himself would have been proud to have it associated with his name. (I read “World Of Carbon” in 1958 while in high school, and am now an 81 year old retired chemist. The Good Doctor was a GOOD writer!)
Wonderful writing. How does one foster strong stastical institutions, especially in places like India or African countries, where state capacity is weak?
During the pandemic I often wondered whether the US was always high on the list not because we actually had per capita more infections but because we actually did a better job of recording.