Two concerns about the interpretation of the estimates of historical national accounts before 1850

• Published in: Journal of global history Vol. 16; no. 2; pp. 294 - 300
• Main Authors: van Zanden, Jan Luiten, Bolt, Jutta
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.07.2021
• Subjects: Accounts; Arenas in Global History: Dating the Great Divergence; Economic Growth; Economic History; Economics and Business; Ekonomi och näringsliv; Ekonomisk historia; Estimates; GDP; Goldstone; Gross Domestic Product; Historians; Hypotheses; Industrial Revolution; National Accounts; Per capita; Pre-1850; Regression analysis; Rejoinder; Samhällsvetenskap; Social Sciences; Time series; Trends; United Kingdom > UK; England; Goldstone; Pre-1850; Industrial Revolution; National Accounts; Accounts; Economic Growth
• ISSN: 1740-0228; 1740-0236
• DOI: 10.1017/S174002282000039X

As contribution to the debate about the interpretation of the process of economic growth before the Industrial Revolution, we discuss two concerns about the currently available estimates of historical national accounts and the way in which these estimates should be interpreted. Firstly, we argue that estimates of the long-term trends of economic growth should make use of all information contained in time series of Gross Domestic Product (GDP henceforth), and therefore use standard regression analysis to establish those trends. Secondly, we point to the problem that the time series of historical GDP are based on very different estimation procedures, which probably affect the outcome in terms of the level of GDP per capita in the period before 1850. Both concerns imply that we do not entirely agree with Jack Goldstone’s views of pre-industrial growth. In particular, his conclusion that growth was cyclical before 1800 is inconsistent with the available GDP estimates, which point to sustained growth, albeit at a very low rate.