scholarly journals MICROBES AND MARKETS: WAS THE BLACK DEATH AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION?

2016 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Clark

Abstract:Recent papers have suggested that the Industrial Revolution in Europe ultimately derives from the labor scarce economy of northwest Europe, which some trace back to the Black Death [Voigtländer and Voth (2013a) and Allen (2011)]. This paper examines the effects of the Black Death in England. Specifically, did it merely change relative factor prices, or did it lead to lasting gains in the efficiency of the economy after 1348? Extensive wage and price data from England 1210–1800 suggest that the population losses of the Black Death were associated with a surprising increase in economic efficiency, despite the decline in the scale of the economy. But this efficiency gain disappeared when population rose again in the 16th century. There is no sign of a connection between a labor scarce economy, and a switch to faster long run economic growth through technological advance.

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICHARD G. LIPSEY

Abstract:This paper argues that technological advance is a necessary condition for sustained economic growth. Technologies and institutions co-evolve in a system of mutual causation. Although some institutions inhibit growth while others encourage it, no single institution is either necessary or sufficient to produce sustained growth. However, some non-unique bundle of encouraging institutions is necessary. Sustained growth began with the Industrial Revolutions that did not just ‘fall out of the blue’ but were instead the culmination of three trajectories of technological advance in steam power, electric power, and the mechanization of textile manufacturing. These stretched over several centuries. Growth then became sustained when the West ‘invented how to invent’. A necessary condition for the Industrial Revolutions was Western science whose roots lie as far back as the scholastic philosophers and the medieval universities. Its absence elsewhere is a sufficient reason why no other place developed its own indigenous industrial revolution.


2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 227-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Fouquet ◽  
Stephen Broadberry

This paper investigates very long-run preindustrial economic development. New annual GDP per capita data for six European countries over the last seven hundred years paint a clearer picture of the history of European economic development. We confirm that sustained growth has been a recent phenomenon, but reject the argument that there was no long-run growth in living standards before the Industrial Revolution. Instead, the evidence demonstrates the existence of numerous periods of economic growth before the nineteenth century—periods of unsustained, but raising GDP per capita. We also show that many of the economies experienced substantial economic decline. Thus, rather than being stagnant, pre-nineteenth century European economies experienced a great deal of change. Finally, we offer some evidence that, from the nineteenth century, these economies increased the likelihood of being in a phase of economic growth and reduced the risk of being in a phase of economic decline.


Author(s):  
Malanima Paolo ◽  
Astrid Kander ◽  
Paul Warde

This chapter examines the role of energy in the economic growth of twentieth-century Europe. It considers the interrelationships of factors of production in order to identify the general features of a shared experience of growth, rather than to illuminate the local differences. The chapter first explains how development blocks contributed to GDP growth before discussing seven long-run propositions, including the strong growth of capital stock and catch-up with the leader of capital–GDP ratios; machinery increased more than GDP, labor, and other capital; and falling and converging energy intensity in the twentieth century. The chapter concludes with an overview of the link between energy intensity and economic structure. It argues that it was the third industrial revolution that was behind most of the increasing economic efficiency of energy consumption after the 1970s.


Author(s):  
Malanima Paolo ◽  
Astrid Kander ◽  
Paul Warde

This chapter considers the role that energy played in the industrial growth in nineteenth-century Europe. The economies of Europe grew more rapidly during the nineteenth century than at any previous period in history. This was not simply a consequence of the doubling of the population; per capita income rose as well. Given these facts it is hardly surprising that energy consumption also increased dramatically. Consumption of coal seems to have been a key part of economic growth, as measured by per capita income, and cheap energy was a necessary condition of the industrial revolution. The chapter first considers how coal development blocks contributed to growth in Europe during the period before discussing a number of long-run propositions, such as the strong complementarity between energy and capital. It concludes with an assessment of the link between energy intensity and economic structure.


2014 ◽  
pp. 4-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Idrisov ◽  
S. Sinelnikov-Murylev

The paper analyzes the inconsequence and problems of Russian economic policy to accelerate economic growth. The authors consider three components of growth rate (potential, Russian business cycle and world business cycle components) and conclude that in order to pursue an effective economic policy to accelerate growth, it has to be addressed to the potential (long-run) growth component. The main ingredients of this policy are government spending restructuring and budget institutions reform, labor and capital markets reforms, productivity growth.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Ahmad Ghazali Ismail ◽  
Arlinah Abd Rashid ◽  
Azlina Hanif

The relationship and causality direction between electricity consumption and economic growth is an important issue in the fields of energy economics and policies towards energy use. Extensive literatures has discussed the issue, but the array of findings provides anything but consensus on either the existence of relations or direction of causality between the variables. This study extends research in this area by studying the long-run and causal relations between economic growth, electricity consumption, labour and capital based on the neo-classical one sector aggregate production technology mode using data of electricity consumption and real GDP for ASEAN from the year 1983 to 2012. The analysis is conducted using advanced panel estimation approaches and found no causality in the short run while in the long-run, the results indicate that there are bidirectional relationship among variables. This study provides supplementary evidences of relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth in ASEAN.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bambang Widagdo ◽  
Mochamad Rofik

The economic diversification concept gives hope for a country with rich natural resources to strengthen its economic basis. Thus industrial revolution era of 4.0 provides great opportunity to fasten the process. A study by McKensey in 2011 proved that the internet in the developing country contributes around 3.4% towards its GDP which means that the internet has become a new hope for the economy in the future. Indonesia is one of the countries that is attempting to maximize the role of the Internet of Things (IoT) for its economic growth.� The attempt has made the retail and tourism industries as the two main sectors to experience the significant effect of IoT. In the process of optimizing the IoT to support the economic growth, Indonesia faces several issues especially in the term of the internet network quality and its distribution, the inclusive access of financial access and the infrastructure


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