IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ozechr/v61y2021i1p10-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Big Economic History

Author

Listed:
  • Peter J. Lloyd

Abstract

This paper reviews the history of human economic activity from the time Homo sapiens appeared to the present. The first aim is to provide a coherent narrative of the economic history of this period. The second aim is to quantify economic activities where time series data is available and to use economic theory to explain the trends and turning points. It examines the history of three central time series – the aggregate human population, output per capita and human‐induced species extinctions. It concludes with some brief observations on the contribution of Big Economic History to Big Human History.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter J. Lloyd, 2021. "Big Economic History," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(1), pages 10-44, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ozechr:v:61:y:2021:i:1:p:10-44
    DOI: 10.1111/aehr.12205
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/aehr.12205
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/aehr.12205?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oded Galor & Omer Moav, 2000. "Natural Selection and the Origin of economic Growth," Working Papers 2000-18, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    2. Enrico Spolaore & Romain Wacziarg, 2013. "How Deep Are the Roots of Economic Development?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(2), pages 325-369, June.
    3. John Komlos & Marc Artzrouni, "undated". ""Population Growth through History and the Escape from the Malthusian Trap: A Homeostatic Simulation Model," Articles by John Komlos 34, Department of Economics, University of Munich.
    4. Peter Lloyd & Cassey Lee, 2018. "A Review Of The Recent Literature On The Institutional Economics Analysis Of The Long†Run Performance Of Nations," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 1-22, February.
    5. Quamrul H. Ashraf & Oded Galor, 2018. "The Macrogenoeconomics of Comparative Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 1119-1155, September.
    6. Colin White, 2018. "A History of the Global Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 18481.
    7. Allen, Robert C., 2011. "Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199596652.
    8. Oded_Galor, 2004. "From Stagnation to Growth:Unified Growth Theory," Working Papers 2004-15, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    9. Rohan Dutta & David K. Levine & Nicholas W. Papageorge & Lemin Wu, 2018. "Entertaining Malthus: Bread, Circuses, And Economic Growth," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 358-380, January.
    10. Oded Galor & Omer Moav, 2002. "Natural Selection and the Origin of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1133-1191.
    11. Oded Galor, 2011. "Unified Growth Theory and Comparative Development," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, issue 2, pages 9-21, April-Jun.
    12. Ronald Lee, 2003. "The Demographic Transition: Three Centuries of Fundamental Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 167-190, Fall.
    13. John Komlos & Marc Artzrouni, "undated". "Mathematical Investigations of the Escape from the Malthusian Trap," Articles by John Komlos 24, Department of Economics, University of Munich.
    14. Galor, Oded, 2005. "From Stagnation to Growth: Unified Growth Theory," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 171-293, Elsevier.
    15. Artzrouni, Marc & Komlos, John, 1985. "Population Growth Through History and the Escape from the Malthusian Trap," Munich Reprints in Economics 3428, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    16. Greasley, David & Oxley, Les, 1998. "Causality and the First Industrial Revolution," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 7(1), pages 33-47, March.
    17. Oded Galor, 2011. "Unified Growth Theory," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9477.
    18. Barry Eichengreen & Donghyun Park & Kwanho Shin, 2013. "Growth Slowdowns Redux: New Evidence on the Middle-Income Trap," NBER Working Papers 18673, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Gregory Clark, 2007. "Introduction to A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World," Introductory Chapters, in: A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, Princeton University Press.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Peter Lloyd, 2022. "New Approaches to Economic History," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 55(1), pages 166-172, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maseland, Robbert, 2021. "Contingent determinants," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    2. Ron W. NIELSEN, 2017. "Changing the direction of the economic and demographic research," Journal of Economics Library, KSP Journals, vol. 4(3), pages 288-309, September.
    3. James Foreman-Peck & Peng Zhou, 2021. "Fertility versus productivity: a model of growth with evolutionary equilibria," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 1073-1104, July.
    4. Schäfer, Andreas & Prettner, Klaus, 2016. "The fall and rise of inequality," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145806, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Chu, Angus C. & Furukawa, Yuichi & Wang, Xilin, 2022. "Rent-seeking government and endogenous takeoff in a Schumpeterian economy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    6. Madsen, Jakob B. & Robertson, Peter E. & Ye, Longfeng, 2019. "Malthus was right: Explaining a millennium of stagnation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 51-68.
    7. Jensen, Peter Sandholt & Pedersen, Maja Uhre & Radu, Cristina Victoria & Sharp, Paul Richard, 2022. "Arresting the Sword of Damocles: The transition to the post-Malthusian era in Denmark," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    8. Angus C. Chu, 2023. "Natural selection and Neanderthal extinction in a Malthusian economy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 1641-1656, July.
    9. Blanc, Guillaume & Wacziarg, Romain, 2020. "Change and persistence in the Age of Modernization: Saint-Germain-d’Anxure, 1730–1895," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    10. Matteo Cervellati & Uwe Sunde, 2011. "Life expectancy and economic growth: the role of the demographic transition," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 99-133, June.
    11. Prettner, Klaus & Schäfer, Andreas, 2016. "Higher education and the fall and rise of inequality," ECON WPS - Working Papers in Economic Theory and Policy 03/2016, TU Wien, Institute of Statistics and Mathematical Methods in Economics, Economics Research Unit.
    12. Alexander Rathke & Samad Sarferaz, 2010. "Malthus was right: new evidence from a time-varying VAR," IEW - Working Papers 477, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    13. Kawalec Paweł, 2020. "The dynamics of theories of economic growth: An impact of Unified Growth Theory," Economics and Business Review, Sciendo, vol. 6(2), pages 19-44, June.
    14. Sascha Becker & Francesco Cinnirella & Ludger Woessmann, 2010. "The trade-off between fertility and education: evidence from before the demographic transition," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 177-204, September.
    15. Ron W. NIELSEN, 2016. "Interpretations of Hyperbolic Growth," Journal of Economics and Political Economy, KSP Journals, vol. 3(4), pages 594-626, December.
    16. Nguyen Thang Dao & Julio Dávila & Angela Greulich, 2021. "The education gender gap and the demographic transition in developing countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 431-474, April.
    17. Oded Galor & Marc Klemp, 2014. "The Biocultural Origins of Human Capital Formation," Working Papers 2014-6, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    18. Strulik, Holger & Werner, Katharina, 2014. "Elite education, mass education, and the transition to modern growth," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 205, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    19. Ron W Nielsen, 2015. "Mathematics of Predicting Growth," Papers 1510.06337, arXiv.org.
    20. Broadberry Stephen, 2012. "Recent Developments in the Theory of Very Long Run Growth: A Historical Appraisal," Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, De Gruyter, vol. 53(1), pages 277-306, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ozechr:v:61:y:2021:i:1:p:10-44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/oznzsea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.