The studies in this exceptional volume explore the challenges and opportunities presented by globalization events prior to 1950, and identify how countries around the Mediterranean responded to them. In addition to comparative assessments of regional performance, the volume offers detailed case studies of Spain, Italy, the Balkans, Turkey, Israel and Egypt.

Part I. Introduction 1. Globalizaton challenge and economic response in the Mediterranean. Sevket Pamuk and Jeffrey G. Williamson Part II. Long Run Growth: A Comparative Assessment 2. How poor was the European periphery before 1850? The Mediterranean vs Scandinavia. Jaime Reis 3. Real wages and relative factor prices around the Mediterranean 1500-1940. Jeffrey G. Williamson 4. European economic development: The core and the Southern periphery 1870-1910 James Foreman-Peck and Pedro Lains Part III. Long Run Growth: Country Studies 5. Growth and retardation in Ottoman Macedonia 1880-1910 Ahmed Akarli 6. The choice of technology: Spanish, Italian, British and US cotton mills compared 1830-1860. Joan Ramon Roses Part IV. Trade, Transport and Domestic Production in the Century Before WWII7. Specialization in the international market for olive oil before WWII. Ramon Ramon-Munoz 8. International competition and the developoment of the dried fruit industry 1880-1930. Jose Morilla-Critz, Alan Olmstead and Paul Rhode 9. International shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea: Istanbul as a maritime center 1870-1910. Gelina Harlaftis and Vassilis Kardasis Part V. Pre-1914 Policy Choices and the Political Economy of Growth 10. Much Ado About Nothing? Italian trade policy in late 19th century. Giovanni Federico and Kevin H. O'Rourke 11. What slowed down the mass emigration from Spain before WWII? A comparison with Italy. Blanca Sanchez-Alonso Part VI: Interwar Policy Choices and the Political Economy of Growth 12. Intervention during the Great Depression: another look at Turkish experience. Sevket Pamuk 13. Egyptian commodity markets in the age of economic liberalism. Tarik Yousef Part VII Twentieth Century Palestine 14. Economic growth and external trade in mandatory Palestine: a special Mediterranean case. Jacob Metzer

Sevket Pamuk, Jeffrey G. Williamson