Introduction: A history of the global economy : the "why" and the "how" / Joerg Baten -- North-western Europe / Jan Luiten van Zanden : The great divergence in the world economy: long-run trends of real income / Stephen Broadberry ; International financial regulation and supervision / Catherine Schenk -- Southern, eastern and central Europe / Joerg Baten : The Sputnik shock, the Pisa shock: human capital as a global growth determinant / Joerg Baten ; State finances during civil wars / Pablo Martín-Aceña ; Property rights in the Russian Empire / Irina Potkina -- The United States and Canada / Price Fishback : The Great Depression of the 1930s and the world economic crisis after 2008 / Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke ; Multi-divisional firms and managerial capitalism / Franco Amatori ; Business history and innovation / Knut Sogner ; Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.: the man behind modern business history / Franco Amatori -- Latin America / Luis Bértola and José Antonio Ocampo : Was there a 'curse of natural resources'? / Joerg Baten ; Latin America 1500-1800: early contact, epidemics and numeracy development / Joerg Baten ; The economic consequences of independence in Latin America / Salomón Kalmanovitz -- Japan / Osamu Saito : Japanese industry during the Second World War / Tetsuji Okazaki -- China / Debin Ma : International expositions and East Asia's participation in the modern era / Ma Min ; Trade and poverty 1820-1913: when the third world fell behind / Jeffrey Williamson -- Middle East, north Africa and central Asia / Rima Ghanem and Joerg Baten : Women in global economic history / Sarah Carmichael, Selin Dilli and Auke Rijpma ; Imperial expansion of the Ottoman Empire and its cultural determinants / Rima Ghanem and Joerg Baten -- South Asia / Tirthankar Roy : Human stature as a health indicator in colonial empires / Joerg Baten and Kris Inwood ; Did brain-drain from India cause underdevelopment?: numeracy of Indian migrants and the Indian population, seventeenth to twentieth century / Joerg Baten -- Southeast Asia and Australia/New Zealand / Martin Shanahan : Pre-history, ancient and classical periods of Southeast Asia / Martin Shanahan ; Institutional development in world economic history / Joerg Baten -- Sub-Saharan Africa / Gareth Austin : Why was Ethiopia not colonized during the late-nineteenth-century 'Scramble for Africa'? / Marjolein 't Hart -- Conclusion / Joerg Baten.