peaks, including the Arab Caliphates in the tenth century, China in the eleventh
century, or India in the mid-seventeenth century (Bairoch, 1993). In fact by the
mid-eighteenth century Europe was only just returning to the income levels it
had achieved in the first century under the rule of the Roman Empire. Between
300 BCE and 14 CE the population of Peninsular Italy had increased from 3.9
million to 7 million and GDP per capita (1990 dollars) from $425 to $857.
Contributory factors characteristic of the Roman Empire included: law and
order; literacy; new agricultural products such as vines and olives; urbaniza-
tion; bridges and road networks; a common currency and increasing monetiza-
tion; international trade improved by harbours and shipping; elimination of
piracy; and increasing specialization in production and trade. The Empire in
the first century had large cities, including 350,000 people in Rome, 216,000
in Alexandria and 90,000 in Antioch. Between 14 CE and 1000 CE the popu-
lation of Italy fell to 5 million and per capita income (1990 dollars) to $450
(Maddison, 2007). This decline was due to the collapse of the Roman Empire,
the replacement of urban civilization with self-sufficient, relatively isolated,
illiterate rural communities and the virtual disappearance of trading links
between Western Europe,North Africa and Asia.
Few would disagree that after 1750, ‘the West’ diverged dramatically from
‘the Rest’. Pritchett finds that ‘Divergence in relative productivity levels and
living standards is the dominant feature of modern economic history’ (1997:3).
He estimates that between 1870 and 1990 the ratio of per capita incomes
between the richest and poorest countries increased by a factor of approxi-
mately five. It is something of a simplification to think of the ‘Rise of the West’
as a single homogeneous process; rather, it is a complex set of sub-stories. One
big study, for example, chronicles ‘four systemic cycles of accumulation’,
among countries comprising the West:the rise of the Genoese to dominance
from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth centuries; a Dutch cycle, from the
late sixteenth century through most of the eighteenth century; a British cycle,
from the latter half of the eighteenth century through the early twentieth
century; and a US cycle, which began in the late nineteenth century (Arrighi,
2010). Large parts of the European economy also underwent noticeable rela-
tive decline from the sixteenth century onwards, including Spain, Portugal and
the old manufacturing centres of Europe from Flanders through western and
southern Germany down to northern Italy (Wallerstein, 1980:179). While
acknowledging this pattern, for the sake of simplicity this chapter either
focuses on England as the first industrial nation or considers Western Europe
as a whole as ‘the West’.
The paradox of long-term stagnation in Europe
If incomes in Europe were indeed not very impressive in c.1750, we have a
puzzle. In the centuries before 1750 there were obvious and significant
improvements in production, trade and transport technologies in Europe.
Between 1000 and 1500 the heavy plough,open fields, the three-field rotation
148 Patterns and Determinants of Economic Growth