Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T00:41:51.031Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

China, Europe, and the Great Divergence: A Study in Historical National Accounting, 980–1850

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2018

Stephen Broadberry ,
Hanhui Guan  and
David Daokui Li
Stephen Broadberry*
Affiliation:
Professor of Economic History, University of Oxford, Nuffield College, OX1 1NF, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Hanhui Guan*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Peking University – Economics, Yiheyuan Read, No. 5, Haidian District, Beijing PRC, Beijign, Beijing 100871, China.
David Daokui Li*
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics, Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, Beijing, Beijing, China.
*
E-mail: [email protected]
E-mail: [email protected]
E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As a result of recent advances in historical national accounting, estimates of GDP per capita are now available for a number of European economies back to the medieval period, including Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain. The approach has also been extended to Asian economies, including India and Japan. So far, however, China, which has been at the center of the Great Divergence debate, has been absent from this approach. This article adds China to the picture, showing that the Great Divergence began earlier than originally suggested by the California School, but later than implied by older Eurocentric writers.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 78 , Issue 4 , December 2018 , pp. 955 - 1000
Copyright
© 2018 The Economic History Association. All rights reserved. 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This paper began as part of the Collaborative Project HI-POD supported by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme for Research, Contract Number SSH7-CT-2008-225342. David Daokui Li and Hanhui Guan acknowledge financial support from the National Social Science Foundation (15ZDB130, 13BJL016). We are grateful to Jack Goldstone, Peter Lindert, Debin Ma, Bas van Leeuwen, Peter Temin, Tom Weiss, and to seminar/conference participants at Columbus, Istanbul, Lund, Lyon, Odense, Vienna, and York for helpful comments and suggestions. Pei Gao provided invaluable research assistance. We also owe our gratitude to two anonymous referees and Ann Carlos, the editor of this JOURNAL, for helpful guidance.

References

References

Allen, Robert C. “Economic Structure and Agricultural Productivity in Europe, 1300–1800.” European Review of Economic History 4, no. 1 (2000): 1–26.Google Scholar
Allen, Robert C. “Agricultural Productivity and Rural Incomes in England and the Yangtze Delta. c. 1620–c. 1820.” Economic History Review 62, no. 3 (2009): 525–550.Google Scholar
Allen, Robert C., Bassino, Jean-Pascal, Ma, Debin, Moll-Murata, Christine, et al. “Wages, Prices, and Living Standards in China, 1738–1925: In Comparison with Europe, Japan and India.” Economic History Review 64, no. 1 (2011): S8–S38.Google Scholar
Álvarez-Nogal, Carlos, and de la Escosura, Leandro Prados. “The Rise and Fall of Spain, 1270–1850.” Economic History Review 66, no. 1 (2013): 1–37.Google Scholar
Bassino, Jean-Pascal, Broadberry, Stephen, Fukao, Kyoji, Gupta, Bishnupriya, et al. “Japan and the Great Divergence, 730–1870.” CAGE Working Paper No. 325. Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy, The University of Warwick, Coventry England, April 2017. Accessed at https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/325-2017_broadberry.pdf.Google Scholar
Beveridge, William. Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century, Vol. I, Price Tables: Mercantile Era. London: Longmans, Green, 1939.Google Scholar
Bowley, Arthur L. “The Measurement of the Accuracy of an Average.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 75 (1911–1912): 77–88.Google Scholar
Broadberry, Stephen. Market Services and the Productivity Race, 1850–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Broadberry, Stephen, Campbell, Bruce, Klein, Alexander, Overton, Mark, et al. British Economic Growth, 1270–1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Broadberry, Stephen, Custodis, Johann, and Gupta, Bishnupriya. “India and the Great Divergence: An Anglo-Indian Comparison of GDP Per Capita, 1600–1871.” Explorations in Economic History 56, no. 1 (2015): 58–75.Google Scholar
Broadberry, Stephen, Guan, Hanhui, and Li, David Daokui. “China, Europe, and the Great Divergence: A Study in Historical National Accounting, 980–1850 [Data set].” Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium of Political and Social Research, 2018. Available at http://doi.org/10.3886/E105383V1.Google Scholar
Broadberry, Stephen, and Gupta, Bishnupriya. “The Early Modern Great Divergence: Wages, Prices and Economic Development in Europe and Asia, 1500–1800.” Economic History Review 59, no. 1 (2006): 2–31.Google Scholar
Shuji, Cao. Zhongguo renkoushi, Vol. 4: Ming shiqi (Chinese Population History, Vol. 4: Ming dynasty). Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Shuji, Cao. Zhongguo renkoushi, Vol. 5: Qing shiqi (Chinese Population History, Vol. 5: Qing dynasty). Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Kang, Chao. Man and Land in Chinese History: An Economic Analysis. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Chapman, Agatha L. Wages and Salaries in the United Kingdom 1920–1938. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1953.Google Scholar
Crafts, Nicholas F.R. British Economic Growth During the Industrial Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Craig, John. The Mint: A History of the London Mint from A.D. 287 to 1948. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.Google Scholar
Deng, Kent G. “Unveiling China’s True Population Statistics for the Pre-Modern Era with Official Census Data.” Population Review 43, no. 2 (2004): 32–69.Google Scholar
Deng, Kent G., and O’Brien, Patrick K.. “Chinese GDP Per Capita from the Han to Modern Times.” World Economics 17 (2016a): 79–123.Google Scholar
Deng, Kent G., and O’Brien, Patrick K.. “Establishing Statistical Foundations of a Chronology for the Great Divergence: A Survey and Critique of the Primary Sources for the Construction of Relative Wage Levels for Ming-Qing China.” Economic History Review 69, no. 4 (2016b): 1057–1082.Google Scholar
Elvin, Mark. The Pattern of the Chinese Past. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Fairbank, John K. China: A New History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Xing, Fang. “Qingdai Jiangnan nongmin de xiaofei,” (The Consumption of Farmers in Jiangnan during the Qing Dynasty). Researches in Chinese Economic History 3 (1996): 91–98.Google Scholar
Feinstein, Charles H. National Income, Expenditure and Output of the United Kingdom, 1855–1965. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Feinstein, Charles H. “Changes in Nominal Wages, the Cost of Living and Real Wages in the United Kingdom over Two Centuries, 1780–1990.” In Labour’s Reward: Real Wages and Economic Change in 19th- and 20th-Century Europe, edited by Pieter Scholliers and Vera Zamagni, 3–36. Aldershot: Elgar, 1995.Google Scholar
Feinstein, Charles H., and Thomas, Mark. “A Plea for Errors.” Historical Methods 35, no. 4 (2002): 155–165.Google Scholar
Fu, Chongju. Chengdu tonglan (Gazetteer of Chengdu City). Chengdu: Bashu Publishing House, 1987.Google Scholar
Guo, Zhengzhong. Zhongguo gudai yanye jingjishi, (History of the ancient Chinese salt industry). Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1997.Google Scholar
Guo, Songyi. “Mingqing shiqi de liangshi shengchan yu nongmin shenghuo shuiping” (Grain Production and Living Standards of Peasants in the Ming and Qing Dynasties). Journal of History Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 1 (2000): 373–396.Google Scholar
Hartwell, Robert. “A Revolution in the Chinese Iron and Coal Industries During the Northern Sung, 960–1126 A.D.” Journal of Asian Studies 21, no. 2 (1962): 153–162.Google Scholar
Hartwell, Robert. “Markets, Technology, and the Structure of Enterprise in the Development of the Eleventh-Century Chinese Iron and Steel Industry.” Journal of Economic History 26, no. 1 (1966): 29–58.Google Scholar
Hartwell, Robert. “A Cycle of Economic Change in Imperial China: Coal and Iron in Northeast China, 750–1350.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 10, no. 1 (1967): 102–159.Google Scholar
Ho, Ping-ti. “Early-Ripening Rice in Chinese History.” Economic History Review 9, no. 2 (1956): 200–218.Google Scholar
Ho, Ping-ti. Studies on the Population of China, 1368–1953. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959.Google Scholar
Horrell, Sara, Humphries, Jane, and Weale, Martin. “An Input-Output Table for 1841.” Economic History Review 47, no. 3 (1994): 545–566.Google Scholar
Huang, Philip. The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Huang, Philip. The Peasant Family and Rural Development in the Yangzi Delta, 1350–1988. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Huang, Philip. “Development or Involution in Eighteenth-Century Britain and China? A Review of Kenneth Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy.” Journal of Asian Studies 61, no. 2 (2002): 501–538.Google Scholar
Karaman, Kivanç, and Pamuk, Sevket. “Ottoman State Finances in European Perspective, 1500–1914.” Journal of Economic History 70, no. 3 (2010): 593–629.Google Scholar
Kong, Lingren. Qufu kongfu dangan ziliao xuanbian (Selective Archives of Confucius Family in Qufu). Jinan: Qilu Publishing House, 1981.Google Scholar
Li, Bozhong and van Zanden, Jan Luiten. “Before the Great Divergence? Comparing the Yangzi Delta and the Netherlands at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century.” Journal of Economic History 72, no. 4 (2012): 956–989.Google Scholar
Li, Fuming. Zhidu lunli yu jingji fazhan: Mingqing Shanghai diqu shehui jingji yanjiu: 1500–1840 (Institutions, Moral Principles and Economic Growth: Social and Economic Research in Shanghai, 1500–1840). Beijing: Wenshi Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Li, Longqian. “Qingdai qianqi Guangdong caikuang, yezhuye zhong de ziben zhuyi mengya” (Seeds of Capitalism in Guangdong’s Mining and Smelting Industry in the Early Qing Dynasty). Academic Research 5 (1979): 116–127.Google Scholar
Liu, Paul K. C., and Hwang, Kuo-shu. “Population Change and Economic Development in Mainland China since 1400.” In Modern Chinese Economic History, edited by Chi-ming Hou and Tzongs-hian Yu, 61–90. Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1979.Google Scholar
Liu, Sen. “Songdai de tieqian yu tiechanliang” (Iron Coins and the Production of Iron in the Song Dynasty). Researches in Chinese Economic History 2 (1993): 86–90.Google Scholar
Luo, Yi. “18th shiji Zhongguo de renkou yu jingji zengchang” (Population and Economic Growth in 18th Century China). Ph.D. diss., School of Economics, Peking University, 1999.Google Scholar
Maddison, Angus. Monitoring the World Economy 1820–1992. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1995.Google Scholar
Maddison, Angus. Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1998.Google Scholar
Maddison, Angus. The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2001.Google Scholar
Maddison, Angus. “Statistics on World Population, GDP and Per Capita GDP, 1–2008 AD.” Groningen Growth and Development Centre, 2010. Accessed at http://www.ggdc.net/MADDISON/oriindex.htm.Google Scholar
Malanima, Paolo. “The Long Decline of a Leading Economy: GDP in Central and Northern Italy, 1300–1913.” European Review of Economic History 15, no. 2 (2011): 169–219.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Brian R. British Historical Statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilization in China, Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954.Google Scholar
O’Brien, Patrick K. “The Nature and Historical Evolution of an Exceptional Fiscal State and Its Possible Significance for the Precocious Commercialization and Industrialization of the British Economy from Cromwell to Nelson.” Economic History Review 64, no. 2 (2011): 408–446.Google Scholar
Peng, Xinwei. Zhongguo huobishi (Chinese Monetary History). Shanghai: Shanghai People Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Peng, Zeyi. Zhongguo jindai shougongyeshi ziliao (Historical Materials of Chinese Handicraft Development in Modern Times). Beijing: Sanlian Publishing House, 1962.Google Scholar
Perkins, Dwight H. Agricultural Development in China, 1368–1968. Chicago: Aldine, 1969.Google Scholar
Pomeranz, Kenneth. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Pomeranz, Kenneth. “Ten Years After: Responses and Reconsiderations.” Historically Speaking 12, no. 4 (2011): 20–25. Project Muse. Accessed at https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/historically_speaking/v012/12.4.coclanis.html.Google Scholar
Qi, Xia. Songdai jingjishi (History of the Economy in the Song Dynasty). Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing Company, 2009.Google Scholar
Robson, Robert. The Cotton Industry in Britain. London: Macmillan, 1957.Google Scholar
Rozman, Gilbert. Urban Networks in Ch’ing China and Tokugawa Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Shi, Zhihong. “19 shiji shangbanqi de Zhongguo gengdi mianji zaiguji” (Re-estimation of Cultivated Land in China During the Early 19th century). Researches in Chinese Economic History 4 (2011): 85–97.Google Scholar
Shi, Zhihong. “Qingdai nongye shengchan zhibiao de guji” (An estimate of Agricultural Economic Indicators in the Qing Dynasty). Researches in Chinese Economic History 5 (2015): 5–30.Google Scholar
Sivasubramonian, S. The National Income of India in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
UK Board of Trade. Report on Wholesale and Retail Prices in the United Kingdom in 1902, with Comparative Statistical Tables for a Series of Years, HC321. British Parliamentary Papers LXVIII, 1903.Google Scholar
van Zanden, Jan Luiten, and van Leeuwen, Bas. “Persistent But Not Consistent: The Growth of National Income in Holland, 1347–1807.” Explorations in Economic History 49, no. 2 (2012): 119–130.Google Scholar
von Glahn, Richard. Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000–1700. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Walker, James T. “National Income in Domesday England.” In Money, Prices and Wages: Essays in Honour of Professor Nicholas Mayhew, edited by Martin Allen and D’Maris Coffman, 24–50. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.Google Scholar
Wang, Lingling. Songdai kuangyeye yanjiu (Research on the Song Dynasty Mining Industry). Baoding: Hebei University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Wang, Shengduo. Liangsong caizhengshi (Fiscal History of the Song Dynasty). Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Wang, Yeh-chien. Qingdai jingjishi lunwenji (Essays on the Economic History of the Qing Dynasty). Taipei: Daoxiang Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Wittfogel, Karl August. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957.Google Scholar
Wong, Roy Bin. China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Wrigley, E. Anthony. “Urban Growth and Agricultural Change: England and the Continent in the Early Modern Period.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 15, no. 4 (1985): 683–728.Google Scholar
Wu, Baosan and Wang, Yusun. Zhongguo guomin suode: 1933yr (China’s National Income in 1933). Shanghai: Zhonghua Publishing Press, 1947.Google Scholar
Wu, Hui. Zhongguo lidai liangshi muchanliang yanji (Research on Grain Yields in Ancient China). Beijing: Agriculture Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Wu, Hui. “Lishi shang liangshi shangpinlv shangpinliang cegu” (An Estimation of the Volume and Commercialization Rate of Historical Grain Production). Researches in Chinese Economic History 6 (1998): 16–31.Google Scholar
Wu, Songdi. Zhongguo renkoushi, Vol. 3: Liao-Song-Jin-Yuan shiqi (Chinese Population History, Vol. 3: Liao-Song-Jin-Yuan Dynasties). Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Xu, Xinwu. Jiangnan tubushi (The History of Cotton Production in Jiangnan). Shanghai: Shanghai Social Science Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Xu Yi, Zhihong Shi, van Leeuwen, Bas, Ni, Yuping, et al. “Chinese National income, ca. 1661–1933.” Australian Economic History Review 57, no. 3 (2017): 368–393.Google Scholar
Yao, Xiangao. Zhongguo jindai duiwai maoyishi ziliao (Historical Data on the Foreign Trade of Modern China). Beijing: China Publishing House, 1962.Google Scholar
Zhang, Zhongli. “Zhongguo guomin shengchan zongzhi de culue guji in 1880s” (An Estimate of China’s National Income in the 1880s). Nankai Economic Quarterly 1 (1987): 80–106.Google Scholar

Historical Sources

Da Ming huidian (Collected Statutes of the Great Ming Dynasty, compiled by Li Dongyang and Shen Shixing). Yangzhou: Guangling Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Daxue yanyi bu, Vol. 29 (Extended Meaning of the Great Learning, Vol. 29. By Qiu Jun). Shanghai: Shanghai Bookstore Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Guangdong tongzhi chugao (Provincial Gazetteer of Guangdong, compiled by Dai Jing). Beijing: Bibliography and Literature Publishing House, 1996.Google Scholar
Houhu zhi (Annals of the Houhu Lake, the central archive for the Yellow Registers of the Ming Dynasty, compiled by Zhao Guan et al.). Nanjing: Nanjing Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Ming shilu (Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty). Taipei: Academia Sinica Institute of History and Philology, 1962.Google Scholar
Qing shilu (Veritable Records of the Qing Dynasty). Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing Company, 2008.Google Scholar
Qingshi gao (Draft History of the Qing, compiled by Zhao Erxun), containing: Shihuo zhi (Treatise on Food and Money) and Yanfa (Salt Act). Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing Company, 1976.Google Scholar
Song huiyao jigao (Collected Statutes of the Song Dynasty) (Xu Song). Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing Company, 1957.Google Scholar
Wenxian tongkao (Comprehensive Examination of the Literature, from Ancient Times to 1224. Compiled by Ma Duanlin), containing Volume Tianfu kao (Documentary History of Land Tax), which contains section Lidai Tianfu zhizhi (The Land Tax Regime). Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing Company, 1986.Google Scholar
Xu zizhi tongjian changbian (Extended Continuation to “Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance” by Li Tao). Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing Company 1992.Google Scholar
Yiban lu (Aspects of Price History, by Zheng Guangzu). Beijing: Chinese Bookstore Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Broadberry et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Broadberry et al. supplementary material(File)
File 47.9 KB