British Economic Growth, 1270–1870

This is a definitive new account of Britain's economic evolution from a backwater of Europe in 1270 to the hub of the global economy in 1870. A team of leading economic historians reconstruct Britain's national accounts for the first time right back into the thirteenth century to show what really happened quantitatively during the centuries leading up to the Industrial Revolution. Contrary to traditional views of the earlier period as one of Malthusian stagnation, they reveal how the transition to modern economic growth built on the earlier foundations of a persistent upward trend in GDP per capita which doubled between 1270 and 1700. Featuring comprehensive estimates of population, land use, agricultural production, industrial and service-sector production and GDP per capita, as well as analysis of their implications, this will be an essential reference for anyone interested in British economic history and the origins of modern economic growth more generally.

Part I. Measuring Economic Growth; Section 1. Population; Part II. Analysing Economic Growth; Section 1. Real-Wage-Rates and GDP Per Head.

Stephen Broadberry is Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Research Theme Leader at CAGE and Director of the Economic History Programme at CEPR. He has also taught at the Universities of Warwick, Oxford and Cardiff and held visiting positions at the University of British Columbia, the University of California, Berkeley, Humboldt University, Berlin, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo and the University of Southern Denmark. His research interests include the development of the world economy from 1000 AD to the present; historical national accounts for Britain since 1086; the Great Divergence of productivity and living standards between Europe and Asia; sectoral aspects of comparative growth and productivity performance during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; productivity in services; wars and economic performance. He is currently Editor of the Economic History Review, and has previously been Editor of the European Review of Economic History. He has been President of the European Historical Economics Society and is currently a Trustee of the Economic History Association and the Asian Historical Economics Society, and an Executive Committee Member of the Economic History Society. His books include The British Economy between the Wars: A Macroeconomic Survey (1986); The Productivity Race: British Manufacturing in International Perspective, 1850–1990 (Cambridge, 1997); Market Services and the Productivity Race, 1850–2000: British Performance in International Perspective (Cambridge, 2006) and the 2-volume Cambridge Economic History of Europe, edited with Kevin O'Rourke (Cambridge, 2010).
Bruce Campbell is Emeritus Professor of Medieval Economic History at Queen's University, Belfast. He belongs to the Academia Europaea, Academy of Social Sciences, British Academy, Royal Historical Society and Royal Irish Academy, and is a former fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. A gradu