ABSTRACT
In the interwar years there was a clear perception that the southern European economies were by then less developed and less industrialized than the economies of the northern periphery, and few authors would disagree that such a gap already existed in 1913. This description is largely correct. Yet, the literature is less clear in what concerns relative income levels half a century earlier. In fact, some authors have argued that, by 1870, southern Europe had levels of income per capita similar to those in Scandinavia. This chapter questions such belief.
