Variations in Economic Growth and Banking Developments in the United States From 1835 to 1885

Taken as a whole the half century from 1835 to 1885 was a periodof substantial economic growth in the United States. The population increased nearly fourfold, or at an annual rate in the neighborhood of 2½ to 2½ per cent per year. Estimates of the national income show a figure at the end of the period six- or sevenfold as large as that at the beginning, the equivalent of an average growdi rate of about 3½ to 4 per cent per year. A crude available estimate of national wealth suggests about a tenfold change, or an annual growth averaging close to 5 per cent. These growth rates for income and wealth do not need to be adjusted downward for price changes, because the available wholesale price indexes suggest that in the middle of the 1880's the price level was a little lower than in the middle of the 1830's. The figures are not to be taken as first class statistical data. They merely indicate the apparent order of magnitude of the degree of growth.