CHINA, EUROPE AND THE GREAT DIVERGENCE: A STUDY IN HISTORICAL NATIONAL ACCOUNTING, 980-1850 Stephen Broadberry, London School of Economics and CAGE,
[email protected] Hanhui Guan, Peking University,
[email protected] David Daokui Li, Tsinghua University,
[email protected] 28 July 2014 File: China7e.doc Abstract: GDP is estimated for China between the late tenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, and combined with population estimates. Chinese GDP per capita was highest during the Northern Song dynasty and declined during the Ming and Qing dynasties. China led the world in living standards during the Northern Song dynasty, but had fallen behind Italy by 1300. At this stage, it is possible that the Yangzi delta was still on a par with the richest parts of Europe, but by 1700 the gap was too large to be bridged by regional variation within China and the Great Divergence had already begun. JEL classification: E100, N350, O100 Keywords: GDP Per Capita; Economic Growth; Great Divergence; China; Europe Acknowledgements: This paper forms part of the project “Reconstructing the National Income of Britain and Holland, c.1270/1500 to 1850”, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, Reference Number F/00215AR. It is also 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 also acknowledge financial support from Humanity and Social Science Promotion Plan of Tsinghua University (2009WKWT007) and National Natural Science Foundation (70973003) 1. INTRODUCTION 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 (Broadberry, Campbell, Klein, Overton and van Leeuwen, 2014; van Zanden and van Leeuwen, 2012; Malanima, 2011; Álvarez- Nogal and Prados de la Escosura, 2013).