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Seven Centuries of European Economic Growth and Decline

  • Roger Fouquet
  • Stephen Broadberry
  • Journal of Economic Perspectives
  • vol. 29, no. 4, Fall 2015
  • (pp. 227-44)
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Abstract

This paper investigates very long-run preindustrial economic development. New annual GDP per capita data for six European countries over the last seven hundred years paint a clearer picture of the history of European economic development. We confirm that sustained growth has been a recent phenomenon, but reject the argument that there was no long-run growth in living standards before the Industrial Revolution. Instead, the evidence demonstrates the existence of numerous periods of economic growth before the nineteenth century—periods of unsustained, but raising GDP per capita. We also show that many of the economies experienced substantial economic decline. Thus, rather than being stagnant, pre-nineteenth century European economies experienced a great deal of change. Finally, we offer some evidence that, from the nineteenth century, these economies increased the likelihood of being in a phase of economic growth and reduced the risk of being in a phase of economic decline.

Citation

Fouquet, Roger and Stephen Broadberry. 2015. "Seven Centuries of European Economic Growth and Decline." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29(4):227-44. DOI: 10.1257/jep.29.4.227

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • E23 Macroeconomics: Production
  • I31 General Welfare; Well-Being
  • N13 Economic History: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations: Europe: Pre-1913
  • N14 Economic History: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations: Europe: 1913-
  • N33 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: Europe: Pre-1913
  • N34 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: Europe: 1913-
  • O47 Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence