IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ssa/lemwps/2011-22.html

Economic Growth in England, 1250-1850: Some New Estimates Using a Demand Side Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Alessandro Nuvolari
  • Mattia Ricci

Abstract

Using the demand side approach we construct a new set of estimates of per capita agricultural output and per capita GDP for England over the period 1250-1850. Our estimates of per capita GDP suggest that the pattern of long run growth of the English economy can be interpreted with a periodization in three historical stages. The first stage, covering the period 1250-1580, is a Malthusian phase with no positive growth. The second stage, comprising the period 1580-1780, is an intermediate phase where the English economy is able to relax some of the Malthusian constraints, attaining a positive growth rate (although our estimate of the growth rate for this period is lower than that proposed by Maddison and more recently by Broadberry, Campbell, Klein, Overton and van Leeuwen). The third stage covering the post 1780 period is represented by the industrial revolution and by the definitive consolidation of a development pattern characterized by a steady positive growth rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandro Nuvolari & Mattia Ricci, 2011. "Economic Growth in England, 1250-1850: Some New Estimates Using a Demand Side Approach," LEM Papers Series 2011/22, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2011/22
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lem.sssup.it/WPLem/files/2011-22.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maddison, Angus, 2007. "Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199227204.
    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. Jane Humphries & Jacob Weisdorf, 2019. "Unreal Wages? Real Income and Economic Growth in England, 1260–1850," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(623), pages 2867-2887.
    2. Cormac Ó Gráda, 2016. "Did Science Cause the Industrial Revolution?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 224-239, March.
    3. Claude Diebolt & Faustine Perrin, 2014. "The Foundations of Female Empowerment Revisited," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 124(4), pages 587-597.
    4. Chilosi, David & Ciccarelli, Carlo, 2025. "Smithian growth in the little divergence: a general equilibrium analysis," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    5. Stephen Broadberry & Bruce M. S. Campbell & Alexander Klein & Mark Overton & Bas van Leeuwen, 2018. "Clark's Malthus delusion: response to ‘Farming in England 1200–1800’," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(2), pages 639-664, May.
    6. Paolo Malanima, 2018. "Italy in the Renaissance: a leading economy in the European context, 1350–1550," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(1), pages 3-30, February.
    7. Ulrich Pfister & Michael Kopsidis, 2015. "Institutions versus demand: determinants of agricultural development in Saxony, 1660–1850," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 19(3), pages 275-293.

    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. Diego A. Comin & Bart Hobijn, 2009. "The CHAT Dataset," Harvard Business School Working Papers 10-035, Harvard Business School.
    2. Thu Hien DAO & Frédéric DOCQUIER & Mathilde MAUREL & Pierre SCHAUS, 2017. "Global Migration in the 20th and 21st Centuries: the Unstoppable Force of Demography," Working Paper 96d89f28-0e80-4703-9b33-6, Agence française de développement.
    3. Julianne Treme & Lee A. Craig, 2013. "Urbanization, Health And Human Stature," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65, pages 130-141, May.
    4. Frédéric DOCQUIER & Joël MACHADO, 2015. "Remittance and Migration Prospects for the Twenty-First Century," Working Papers P133, FERDI.
    5. Skare, Marinko & Soriano, Domingo Riberio, 2021. "Technological and knowledge diffusion link: An international perspective 1870–2019," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    6. Alexsandros Cavgias & Cristian Navarro, 2025. "Seeds of Prejudice: The Impact of British Colonization on Attitudes towards Sexual Minorities," Working Papers wp2025_2514, CEMFI.
    7. Krantz, Olle, 2023. "One and a Half Millennium of Economic Change in Sweden," Lund Papers in Economic History 249, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    8. Thomas S. Ulen, 2011. "The Uneasy Case for Competition Law and Regulation as Decisive Factors in Development: Some Lessons for China," Chapters, in: Michael Faure & Xinzhu Zhang (ed.), Competition Policy and Regulation, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Eduardo Haddad & Inácio Araújo, 2022. "Regional Science Meets the Past: What Do Coin Finds Tell Us About the Ancient Spatial Economy?," TD NEREUS 2-2022, Núcleo de Economia Regional e Urbana da Universidade de São Paulo (NEREUS).
    10. Milanovic, Branko, 2013. "The inequality possibility frontier: the extensions and new applications," Comparative Institutional Analysis Working Paper Series 2013:1, Lund University, Comparative Institutional Analysis, School of Economics and Management.
    11. Aki Tomizawa & Li Zhao & Geneviève Bassellier & David Ahlstrom, 2020. "Economic growth, innovation, institutions, and the Great Enrichment," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 7-31, March.
    12. Deng, Kent & O’Brien, Patrick Karl, 2016. "China’s GDP per capita from the Han Dynasty to communist times," Economic History Working Papers 64857, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    13. Steve Newbold & Charles Griffiths & Christopher C. Moore & Ann Wolverton & Elizabeth Kopits, 2010. "The "Social Cost of Carbon" Made Simple," NCEE Working Paper Series 201007, National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, revised Aug 2010.
    14. Jedwab, Remi & Vollrath, Dietrich, 2015. "Urbanization without growth in historical perspective," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-21.
    15. João César das Neves, 2012. "Globalization and Geographical Growth Patterns," Chapters, in: Roberta Capello & Tomaz Ponce Dentinho (ed.), Globalization Trends and Regional Development, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Stijepic, Denis, 2019. "A topological approach to structural change analysis and an application to long-run labor allocation dynamics," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 453-462.
    17. Mahdavi, Paasha, 2014. "Why do leaders nationalize the oil industry? The politics of resource expropriation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 228-243.
    18. Prados de la Escosura, Leandro & Rodríguez-Caballero, C. Vladimir, 2022. "War, pandemics, and modern economic growth in Europe," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    19. Markus Lampe & Paul Sharp, 2014. "Greasing the wheels of rural transformation? Margarine and the competition for the British butter market," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(3), pages 769-792, August.
    20. Stephen C. Newbold & Charles Griffiths & Chris Moore & Ann Wolverton & Elizabeth Kopits, 2013. "A Rapid Assessment Model For Understanding The Social Cost Of Carbon," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(01), pages 1-40.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

    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:ssa:lemwps:2011/22. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/labssit.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.