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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. How Was Life? New Perspectives on Well-being and Global Inequality since 1820, presents new estimates of working hours, biodiversity loss, social spending and GDP (accounting for the 2011 round on purchasing power parities) as well as measures of inequalities in wealth, longevity and educational attainment, gender disparities and extreme poverty. A final chapter synthesises the historical evidence included both in the current and previous volume of How Was Life? through composite measures of the average well-being performance of each country, and of different within-country inequality measures. As was the case for the previous volume, this book combines both a historical and a global perspective, presenting estimates since 1820 for 25 major countries and 8 world regions. While this evidence sometimes relies on partial and limited evidence, each chapter in this book assesses the quality of the data used and identifies areas for further historical research. This second volume of How Was Life? is the product of collaboration between the OECD and the OECD Development Centre, on one side, and a group of economic historians gathered around the CLIO-INFRA and Maddison projects, on the other. The historical evidence included in the report is organised around dimensions of well-being that mirror those used by the OECD in its report How’s Life?

This chapter provides an introduction to, and summary of, the contents of this book. It outlines the aim of the project and provides an overview of the indicators covered, comparing them with those used in the OECD Better Life Initiative. The chapter also presents the criteria used through the report to assess the quality of the indicators used and discusses practical and methodological issues. Finally, the chapter summarises the content of each chapter and its main highlights.

With use of innovative proxies and new annual data, I demonstrate that relatively high legal capacity and regulatory activity of the early-modern Polish parliament was positively associated with deeper commodity market integration. Conversely, the lack of effective law-making, caused by the right of a single delegate to discontinue the parliamentary sessions, fostered market fragmentation. This indicates that early parliamentary regimes might have required legal capacity to harmonize domestic institutions and reduce the transaction costs. The Polish case suggests a hypothesis that the pre-1800 'Little Divergence' between European parliamentary regimes could potentially be partially explained by differences in their capacities.