The quality of life experienced by people in the past is one of the most important areas of historical enquiry, and the standard of living of populations is one of the leading measures of the economic performance of nations. Yet how accurate is the information on which these judgments are based? This collection of essays, written by renowned scholars in the fields of labour, wage and welfare history, cogently undermine the validity of the data that have for decades dominated the measurement of these phenomena in Britain, Europe and Asia, and provided the statistical backbone for countless descriptions and analyses of economic development, welfare and many other prime subjects in economic and social history. The contributors to this volume rigorously expose misapprehensions of long-run macroeconomic estimates of the real wage and provide a host of improved methods and data for revising and rejecting them. This volume is essential reading for anyone interested in economic and social history, economics and the application of statistical methods to historical evidence.

Top pay has risen much faster than average pay in the past 20 years. Today there's widespread public concern about the apparent excesses of some pay deals in the corporate sector - although people are more forgiving of the rewards to entrepreneurs, entertainers and sports stars. This collection of essays puts various aspects of this debate under the spotlight. It looks at the role of shareholders in awarding executive pay, examines how pay data are produced and used, and asks whether Long-Term Incentive Plans have created unnecessary inflation of executive pay. It also looks at high pay in the public sector and in areas where government funding plays a major role - such as universities and charities. And it investigates the disparity in pay between men and women among very high earners.