Technology and Gross World Product
This chapter divides the economic history of humans into technological eras and uses a population multiplied by per capita income approach to estimate gross world product in each era and, therefore, for the history of humankind. It also provides an overview of the major technologies that introduced each era and supported growth during the era. The chapter uses a model developed by the authors to predict gross world product during the remainder of the 21st century (2021-2100). It also considers which economies might have been the largest in the world since the dawn of civilisation about 6,000 years ago. The chapter concludes with the prediction that China, India, and the United States will remain the dominant economic powers during the remainder of the 21st century, that the gross domestic product (GDP) of India will pass that of the United States in the late 2030s and the GDP of China in the late 2040s, and will be more than 50% larger than that of second-placed China by 2100.