This article introduces a new dataset on wages in northern India (from Gujarat in the west to Bengal in the east) from the 1590s to the 1870s. It follows Allen's subsistence basket methodology to compute internationally comparable real wages to shed light on developments in Indian living standards over time. It adjusts the comparative cost‐of‐living indices to take into account differences in climate and caloric intake due to variances in heights. The article also discusses the male/female wage gap in northern India. It demonstrates that the ‘great divergence’ started in the late seventeenth century, and widened further after the 1720s and especially after the 1800s. It was subsequently primarily England's spurt and India's stagnation in the first half of the nineteenth century that brought about most serious differences in the standard of living. If the British colonial state is to blame—as often suggested by the literature on India's persistent poverty—the fault lies in its failure to improve the situation after the British became near‐undisputed masters of India in 1820.

中文翻译：

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印度北部的贫穷还是繁荣？1590到1870年代有关实际工资的新证据†

本文介绍了1590年代至1870年代印度北部（从西部的古吉拉特邦到东部的孟加拉邦）工资的新数据集。它遵循艾伦（Allen）的生存篮子方法来计算国际上可比的实际工资，以了解印度生活水平随时间的发展情况。它会调整比较生活费用指数，以考虑到由于高度变化而导致的气候和热量摄入的差异。文章还讨论了印度北部的男女工资差距。它表明，“大分歧”始于17世纪后期，并在1720年代之后，特别是在1800年代之后进一步扩大。随后主要是英格兰和印度 在19世纪上半叶停滞不前，造成了生活水平的最严重差异。如果要归咎于英国殖民地国家（正如文献经常指出的那样，印度的持续贫困），那就在于错误在于英国在1820年成为几乎毫无争议的印度主人之后未能改善局势。