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Assessing climate impacts on English economic growth (1645–1740): an econometric approach

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Abstract

British pre-industrial economic growth has traditionally been analysed from the Malthusian point of view and other more optimistic approaches, but in many cases, ignoring environmental factors. This article explores the inclusion of the climate in this general debate, focusing on one of the colder periods of the last 500 years, known as the Maunder Minimum. The provisional results suggest that climate change and the resulting adaptations may have influenced the start of the English Agricultural Revolution, the Energy Transition and the European Divergence. However, from an econometric point of view these results are not fully conclusive, making it necessary to continue working with better primary sources and other alternative methodologies.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous reviewers and editors of this journal, as well as all the participants in the PhD Seminar in Economic History held at the University of Barcelona, for their valuable contributions that helped improve this article.

Funding

This collaborative research has been funded by the Spanish projects RTI2018-093970-B-C33, PGC2018-096350-B-100, and ECO2016-75805-R.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics and Business, 690 Diagonal Avenue, 08034, Barcelona, Spain

    José Luis Martínez-González, Jordi Suriñach & Enric Tello

  2. Department of Economics, University of Girona, Montilivi Campus, 17003, Girona, Spain

    Gabriel Jover

  3. Group of Climatology, University of Barcelona, Montalegre 6, 08001, Barcelona, Spain

    Javier Martín-Vide & Mariano Barriendos-Vallvé

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  1. José Luis Martínez-González
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Martínez-González, J.L., Suriñach, J., Jover, G. et al. Assessing climate impacts on English economic growth (1645–1740): an econometric approach. Climatic Change 160, 233–249 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02633-0

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