Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Preindustrial Economic Growth, ca. 1270–1820

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Handbook of Cliometrics

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of the current state of the art regarding the trends and causes of preindustrial economic growth in Western Europe between ca. 1270 and 1820. In doing so, the chapter introduces measures of living standards – i.e., real wages and per capita GDP. The Low Countries and England showed more or less stable real wages after the increase in wages in the fourteenth century following the Black Death, whereas real wages elsewhere in Europe declined in the long run. This “Little Divergence” between the North Sea area and the rest of the continent is also evident from estimates on per capita GDP. On the continent, per capita GDP stagnated or declined, whereas Holland and England showed a lot of progress – they were substantially richer in 1750 than in 1500. There were two key developments in this process. The first is the Black Death, which increased living standards in the countries bordering the North Sea regions due to well-functioning labor and capital markets. The second is the shift to premodern economic growth following the Black Death. The chapter summarizes the causes of the vast increases in living standards in the North Sea region between 1348 and 1820, including human capital formation and international trade.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • A’Hearn B, Crayen D, Baten J (2009) Quantifying quantitative literacy: age heaping and the history of human capital. J Econ Hist 68(3):783–808

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Acemoglu A, Robinson J (2012) Why nations fail? The origins of power, prosperity and poverty. Crown, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Acemoglu D, Robinson JA, Johnson S (2005) The rise of Europe: Atlantic trade, institutional change, and economic growth. Am Econ Rev 95(3):546–579

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Akcomak IS, Webbink D, ter Weel B (2016) Why did the Netherlands develop so early? The legacy of the brethren of the common life. Econ J 126:821–860

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen RC (2001) The great divergence in European wages and prices from the middle ages to the first world war. Explor Econ Hist 38(4):411–447

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen RC (2003) Progress and poverty in early modern Europe. Econ Hist Rev LVI(3):403–443

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen RC, Bassino JP, Ma D, Moll-Murata C, van Zanden JL (2011) Wages, prices, and living standards in China, 1738–1925: in comparison with Europe, Japan, and India. Econ Hist Rev 64:8–38

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alvarez-Nogal C, Prados de la Escosura L (2013) The rise and fall of Spain (1270–1850). Econ Hist Rev 66(1):1–37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baten J, van Zanden JL (2008) Book production and the onset of modern economic growth. J Econ Growth 13(3):217–235

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Becker G (1981) A Treatise on the Family. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Becker SO, Woessmann L (2009) Was weber wrong? A human capital theory of Protestant economic history. Q J Econ 124:531–596

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bolt J, van Zanden JL (2014) The Maddison project: collaborative research on historical national accounts. Econ Hist Rev 67(3):627–651

    Google Scholar 

  • Borsch SJ (2005) The black death in Egypt and England. University of Texas Press, Austin

    Google Scholar 

  • Bosker M, Buringh E, van Zanden JL (2013) From Baghdad to London: unraveling urban development in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, 800–1800. Rev Econ Stat 95(4):1418–1437

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brenner R (1989) Economic backwardness in Eastern Europe in light of developments in the west. In: Chirot D (ed) The origins of backwardness in Eastern Europe. University of California Press, Berkeley, pp 15–53

    Google Scholar 

  • Broadberry SN, Campbell B, van Leeuwen B (2013) When did Britain industrialise? The sectoral distribution of the labour force and labour productivity in Britain, 1381–1851. Explor Econ Hist 50:16–27

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Broadberry SN, Campbell B, Klein A, Overton M, van Leeuwen B (2015) British economic growth, 1270–1870. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Buyst E (2011) Towards estimates of long term growth in the Southern low countries, ca.1500–1846. Results presented at the Conference on Quantifying Long Run Economic Development, Venice, 22–24 March 2011

    Google Scholar 

  • Carmichael SG, de Pleijt AM, van Zanden JL, de Moor T (2016) The European marriage pattern and its measurement. J Econ Hist 76(1):196–204

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark C (1940) Conditions of economic progress. Macmillan and Co, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark G (1996) The political foundations of modern economic growth: England, 1540–1800. J Interdiscip Hist 26:563–588

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Moor T, van Zanden JL (2010) Girl power: the European marriage pattern and labour markets in the North Sea region in the late medieval and early modern period. Econ Hist Rev 63(1):1–33

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Pleijt AM, van Zanden JL (2016) Accounting for the little divergence: what drove economic growth in preindustrial Europe, 1300–1800? Eur Rev Econ Hist 20(4):387–409

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Pleijt AM, van Zanden JL (2018) Two worlds of female labour: gender wage inequality in Western Europe, 1300–1800. EHES Working Papers in Economic History, no. 138

    Google Scholar 

  • Dennison T, Ogilvie S (2014) Does the European marriage pattern explain economic growth? J Econ Hist 74(3):651–693

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dennison TK, Ogilvie S (2016) Institutions, demography, and economic growth. J Econ Hist 76(1):205–217

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dyer C (1989) Standards of living in the late middle ages; social change in England c. 1200–1520. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Epstein SR (1991) Cities, regions and the late medieval crisis: Sicily and Tuscany compared. Past Present 130(1):3–50

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Epstein SR (2001) Freedom and growth: the rise of states and Markets in Europe 1300–1750. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Fouquet R, Broadberry SN (2015) Seven centuries of European economic growth and decline. J Econ Perspect 29(4):227–244

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Galor O (2011) Unified growth theory. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hatcher J (2011) Unreal wages: problems with long-run standards of living and the ‘golden age’ of the fifteenth century. Unpublished manuscript, presented at the annual meeting of the Economic History Society

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoeppner Moran JA (1985) The growth of English schooling, 1340–1548: learning, literacy and laicization in Pre-Reformation York Diocese. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman PT, Norberg K (1994) Conclusion. In: Hoffman PT, Norberg K (eds) Fiscal crises, liberty, and representative government 1450–1789. Stanford University Press, Stanford, pp 299–310

    Google Scholar 

  • Humphries J, Weisdorf JL (2015) The wages of women in England, 1260–1850. J Econ Hist 72(2):405–447

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krantz O (2017) Swedish GDP 1300–1560 a tentative estimate. Lund Papers in Economic History: General Issues, No. 152

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuznets S (1966) Modern economic growth: rate, structure, and spread. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Maddison A (2001) The world economy: a millennial perspective. OECD Publishing, Paris

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Malanima P (2011) The long decline of a leading economy. GDP in North Italy 1300–1911. Eur Rev Econ Hist 15:169–219

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malinowski M, van Zanden JL (2017) Income and its distribution in preindustrial Poland. Cliometrica 11:1–30, (forthcoming)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meisenzahl R, Mokyr J (2012) The rate and direction of invention in the British industrial revolution: incentives and institutions. In: Lerner J, Stern S (eds) The rate and direction of inventive activity revisited. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 443–479

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Mokyr J (2002) The gifts of Athena: historical origins of the knowledge economy. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Mokyr J (2005) Long-term economic growth and the history of technology. In: Handbook of economic growth, vol 1. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 1113–1180

    Google Scholar 

  • Mokyr J (2009) The enlightened economy: an economic history of Britain, 1700–1850. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • North DC, Weingast B (1989) Constitutions and commitment: evolution of institutions governing public choice in seventeenth century England. J Econ Hist 49(4):803–832

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Orme N (2006) Medieval schools: from Roman Britain to renaissance England. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Pamuk S (2006) The black death and the origins of the ‘Great Divergence’ across Europe, 1300–1600. Eur Rev Econ Hist 11:289–317

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ridolfi L (2016) The French economy in the longue durée. A study on real wages, working days and economic performance from Louis IX to the Revolution (1250–1789). Dissertation IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca, available at http://e-theses.imtlucca.it/211/1/Ridolfi_phdthesis.pdf

  • Schön L, Krantz O (2015) The Swedish economy in the early modern period: constructing historical national accounts. Eur Rev Econ Hist 16:529–549

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stephens WB (1987) Education, literacy and society, 1830–70: the geography of diversity in provincial England. Manchester University Press, Manchester

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephenson JZ (2018a) ‘Real’ wages? Contractors, workers, and pay in London building trades, 1650–1800. Econ Hist Rev 71(1):106–132

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stephenson JZ (2018b) Looking for work? Or looking for workers? Days and hours of work in London construction in the eighteenth century. University of Oxford Discussion Papers in Economic and Social History, no. 162

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Bavel BJP (2006) Rural wage labour in the 16th-century low countries: an assessment of the importance and nature of wage labour in the countryside of Holland, Guelders and Flanders. Contin Chang 21:37–72

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Bavel BJP, van Zanden JL (2004) The jump-start of the Holland economy during the late-medieval crisis, c. 1350 – c. 1500. Econ Hist Rev 57(3):503–532

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Zanden JL (2009) The long road to the industrial revolution: the European economy in a global perspective, 1000–1800. Global economic history series, vol 1. Brill, Leiden

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Zanden JL (2011) The Malthusian intermezzo: Women’s wages and human capital formation between the late middle ages and the demographic transition of the 19th century. Hist Fam 16:331–342

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Zanden JL, Felice E (2017) Benchmarking the middle ages. XV century Tuscany in European perspective. CGEH Working Papers, No. 81

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Zanden JL, van Leeuwen B (2012) Persistent but not consistent: the growth of national income in Holland, 1347–1807. Explor Econ Hist 49(2):119–130

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Zanden JL, de Moor T, Zuijderduijn J (2012a) Small is beautiful. On the efficiency of credit markets in late Medieval Holland. Eur Rev Econ Hist 16:3–22

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Zanden JL, Buringh E, Bosker M (2012b) The rise and decline of European parliaments, 1188–1789. Econ Hist Rev 65(3):835–861

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Voigtländer N, Voth H-J (2013) How the west “Invented” fertility restriction. Am Econ Rev 103(6):2227–2264

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Alexandra M. de Pleijt

  2. Department of History and Art History – Economic and Social History, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Jan Luiten van Zanden

Authors
  1. Alexandra M. de Pleijt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jan Luiten van Zanden
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jan Luiten van Zanden .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. BETA/CNRS, University of Strasbourg, Institute for Advanced Study, Strasbourg, France

    Claude Diebolt

  2. University of Wisconsin – La Crosse, La Crosse, WI, USA

    Michael Haupert

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

de Pleijt, A.M., van Zanden, J.L. (2019). Preindustrial Economic Growth, ca. 1270–1820. In: Diebolt, C., Haupert, M. (eds) Handbook of Cliometrics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00181-0_63

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation