When did Economic Growth Start?

When did Economic Growth Start?

Thilo R. Huning

Historical Perspectives on Economic Growth

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Questions of this Lecture

I How developed is this world today?

I When did the world’s economy start to grow?

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Some charts

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Some charts

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How developed is this world

Some charts

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How developed is this world

Some charts

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How developed is this world

Some charts

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How developed is this world

Some charts

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How developed is this world

Some charts

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Some charts

All previous charts came from

https://qz.com/1506764/ways-the-world-improved-in-2018-in-charts/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

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How developed is this world?

I While there is hope in many aspects of economic development,

large differences in affluence remain between countries as
well as within countries
I We would like to understand
I Which factors cause economic development
I How much they affect it (magnitude)
I How much of the overall differences in development can be
explained by this factor
I An excellent collection of data on all development, including
some explanatory texts, is provided by ourworldindata.org

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When did the UK get rich?

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Take-aways from this chart

I Before 1650, there was almost no economic growth in the UK

I If there were periods of economic growth, they were not
sustained, and other periods eradicated the gains in per
capita income
I The flat line before 1650 turns into a quasi-exponential
function

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So the world did not grow before 1650?

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A broader perspective (Fouquet and Broadberry 2015)

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Take aways from the European comparison

I Sustained economic growth was seldom in Europe (exemption:

Holland)
I As we will see, the same holds true for other world regions,
which had phases of growth but also decline
I This changed fundamentally after 1800, since growth is now
common

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An age of no growth

I The vast majority of human history showed very little change

in average living standards
I Why was there no growth before, despite new inventions?
I In the next lecture, we will here some theory that makes clear
why this age of no growth is called the Malthusian epoch,
after Thomas Malthus (1766–1834). Since humanity was
trapped at a low level of income, this is also called the
Malthusian trap

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Key questions of this lecture series

I How did we leave this time of stagnant living standards?

I Why did ‘the West’ leave it first?
I We will look in detail at the role of the Industrial Revolution,
and Britain’s role in it

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Concepts of this lecture

I Malthusian epoch

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Reading for Today

Please read Clark (2008), Ch. 1 “Introduction: The Sixteen-Page

Economic History of the World”

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References I

Clark, Gregory (2008). A farewell to alms: a brief economic history

of the world. Vol. 25. Princeton University Press.
Fouquet, Roger and Stephen Broadberry (2015). “Seven centuries
of European economic growth and decline”. In: Journal of
Economic Perspectives 29.4, pp. 227–44.

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