That headline is a big promise. But here it is: The economic history of the world going back to Year 1 showing the major powers’ share of world GDP, from a research letter written by Michael Cembalest, an analyst at JP Morgan.
I’m guessing that your first question, if you started scanning from the left, is: Wait, India was by far the biggest economy at the dawn of AD? Yup, India.
In Year 1, India and China were home to one-third and one-quarter of the world’s population, respectively. It’s hardly surprising, then, that they also commanded one-third and one-quarter of the world’s economy, respectively.
Before the Industrial Revolution, there wasn’t really any such thing as lasting income growth from productivity. In the thousands of years before the Industrial Revolution, civilization was stuck in the Malthusian Trap. If lots of people died, incomes tended to go up, as fewer workers benefited from a stable supply of crops. If lots of people were born, however, incomes would fall, which often led to more deaths. That explains the “trap,” and it also explains why populations so closely approximated GDP around the world.
The industrial revolution(s) changed all that. Today, the U.S. accounts for 5% of the world population and 21% of its GDP. Asia (minus Japan) accounts for 60% of the world’s population and 30% of its GDP.
So, one way to read the graph, very broadly speaking, is that everything to the left of 1800 is an approximation of population distribution around the world and everything to the right of 1800 is a demonstration of productivity divergences around the world — the mastering of means of manufacturing, production and supply chains by steam, electricity, and ultimately software that concentrated, first in the West, and then spread to Japan, Russia, China, India, Brazil, and beyond.
(Thanks to JPM’s Cembalest: Economist history of China and other major powers – for this)
Related articles
- The Economic History of the Last 2,000 Years in 1 Little Graph (theatlantic.com)
- China’s achievement is literally the greatest in world economic history (ablog.typepad.com)
- Download The Economic History of World Population e-book (ifobuurl.typepad.com)
- Peak planet: Are we starting to consume less? (newscientist.com)
- Peak planet: Are we starting to consume less? (newscientist.com)
- American industrial revolution inventors in the 1800s (tobydunaway1.typepad.com)
- UNU-IHDP and UNEP launch sustainability index that looks beyond GDP (eurekalert.org)
- Report: World’s population is 17 million tons overweight (vitals.msnbc.msn.com)
- Report: World’s population is 17 million tons overweight (vitals.msnbc.msn.com)
- China in Ten Words, By Yu Hua (independent.co.uk)
Having read this I thought it was rather informative.
I appreciate you finding the time and energy to put this information together.
I once again find myself spending way too much time both reading and commenting.
But so what, it was still worthwhile!
When I initially commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now
each time a comment is added I get several emails with the same comment.
Is there any way you can remove me from that service? Appreciate it!
Your style iis unique in comparison to other people I have read stuff from.
I appreciate you for posting hen you have the opportunity, Guess I’ll just book mark this blog.
Very informative post….thanks for sharing about economic history…
Nice point you have..happy to read your post…thanks for sharing….
Very informative post….thanks for sharing about economic history…
Very good information.
GMAT Tutor NYC
Hi friend,Post your amazing