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Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University and currently a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford. Educated at Oxford, Mark's main interests lie in economic history and comparative development. He is currently writing a book (with Noel Johnson) on the origins of religious freedom in western Europe. He has also published papers on state formation in Europe and China, weather shocks and pogroms in the middle ages, and private policing in 19th century England. More details about his research can be found on his webpage. He also blogs at Medium and Notes on Liberty.
Humanity’s Remarkable Economic History
Marian Tupy at the Cato Institute provides a short summary of recent work by economic historians at Groningen's Growth and Development Centre. These scholars have built on the work of the pioneering economic historian Angus Maddison, who was the first to provide comprehensive estimates of per capita GDP for the preindustrial world.
As in Maddison's original estimates, these data show that per capita incomes in today's developed countries followed a hockey stick pattern. Whatever economic ups and downs there were in preindustrial times, they are dwarfed by the growth that has occurred since 1800. Per capita incomes in France have increased by a factor of 24 since 1800. In particular, the data point to the rapid transformation of economies like that of China, which remained closed to subsistence as recently as the 1970s.
These facts are widely known among economists but much less appreciated by scholars in other fields or the general public. Tupy's piece is a great summary.
