Accounting for the Great Divergence: Recent findings from historical national accounting

Stephen Broadberry

CAGE Online Working Paper Series from Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE)

Abstract: As a result of recent work on historical national accounting, it is now possible to establish more firmly the timing of the Great Divergence of living standards between Europe and Asia in the eighteenth century. There was a European Little Divergence as Britain and the Netherlands overtook Italy and Spain, and an Asian Little Divergence as Japan overtook China and India. The Great Divergence occurred because Japan grew more slowly than Britain and the Netherlands starting from a lower level, and because of a strong negative growth trend in Qing dynasty China. A growth accounting framework is used to assess the contributions of labour, human and physical capital, land and total factor productivity. In addition to these proximate sources, the roles of institutions and geography are examined as the ultimate sources of the divergent growth patterns.

Keywords: Great Divergence; living standards; measurement; explanation JEL Classification: N10; N30; N35; O10; O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-gro, nep-his and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/c ... tions/wp549.2021.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: Accounting for the Great Divergence: Recent Findings from Historical National Accounting (2021)
Working Paper: Accounting for the Great Divergence: Recent findings from historical national accounting (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cge:wacage:549

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