Evidence-based Unified Growth Theory Vol.3

Unified Growth Theory published by Oded Galor is called unified because it puts together earlier attempts to explain the historical economic growth and the historical growth of population. These attempts were made over many years and by now they form the established knowledge in economics and in demography.Unfortunately, the past research was difficult because (1) access to data was strongly limited and (2) growth turns out to be represented by strongly deceptive distributions. They create an illusion of stagnation followed by a sudden explosion, while in fact they increase monotonically all the time and there is no sudden transition from a slow to fast growth. Data represented by these distributions have to be carefully and methodically analysed; otherwise conclusions are based on illusions.Galor was in a far better position than many of the past researchers because he had access to superb and extensive sets of data made available by the world renown economist, Angus Maddison. These data describe economic growth and the growth of population, global, regional and even in individual countries. They are a rich source of information, which Galor failed to use. He made no attempt to analyse them.There is no explanation for his neglect to analyse data mathematically because (1) he uses mathematics in his theory and thus he is familiar with mathematical procedures and (2) because trajectories describing growth of population and economic growth, while being deceptive, are trivially easy to analyse. No great skill is needed to analyse these distributions. Indeed, there is even no need to analyse them mathematically. Reliable conclusions can be reached just by using different plots of data. However, mathematical analysis, which is simple and easy, helps in a better understanding of the mechanism of growth.