Journal Article

Seven Centuries of European Economic Growth and Decline

Broadberry, Stephen, Fouquet, Roger

2015

Overview

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.

• Publisher: American Economic Association
• Subject: 1300-1800 / 17th century / 19th century / Agricultural production / Datasets / Economic decline / Economic development / Economic growth / Economic history / Economic research / Economic stagnation / Economic statistics / Economic theory / Economics / Europe / Eurozone / GDP / Gross Domestic Product / Growth models / Industrial Revolution / International economics / Long run economic growth / Per capita / Standard of living / Studies / Time series