Penser la révolution industrielle

John Komlos

Histoire, économie & société, 1996, vol. 15, issue 4, 615-629

Abstract: [fre] Résumé Cet article présente un modèle du développement des économies traditionnelles. Ce modèle est « malthusien » : la tendance de la population à croître plus vite que les disponibilités en détermine des cycles longs, qui se terminent par des crises graves, comme celle des XVIe et XVIIe siècles. Mais ce modèle est fortement nuancé par l'introduction d'« épisodes boserupiens » durant lesquels la croissance de la population a des effets positifs. De plus, en Europe, les crises n'ont pas empêché l'accumulation croissante de capital physique et humain. Cette accumulation a débouché sur la Révolution industrielle, qui a permis d'échapper au piège malthusien, et qui apparaît donc comme le couronnement d'un processus à très long terme. [eng] Abstract This article proposes a model of the development of traditional economics. This model is "malthusian" : the propensity of population to grow faster than food supplies generates long cycles, which lead into serious crises, as in the 14th and 17th centuries. However, the model is markedly qualified by introducing "boserupian episodes", during which population growth has positive effects. More over, in Europe, successive crises did not prevent an increasing accumulation of both physical and human capital. This accumulation was at the root of the Industrial revolution, thanks to wich there was an escape from the malthusian trap ; it has therefore to be seen as the crowning of a very long process.

Date: 1996
Note: DOI:10.3406/hes.1996.1890
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.3406/hes.1996.1890 (text/html)
https://www.persee.fr/doc/hes_0752-5702_1996_num_15_4_1890 (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Penser la révolutionne industrielle
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:prs:hiseco:hes_0752-5702_1996_num_15_4_1890

Access Statistics for this article

Histoire, économie & société is currently edited by Armand Colin

More articles in Histoire, économie & société from Programme National Persée
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Equipe PERSEE ().