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Contributions from
the Column
Books and Media
The state of the world
Regional integration in Africa: mainly a good idea so far
Poverty reduction – a cross-sectoral task
One thousand years of the world economy
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[ Meagre analysis, extensive statistics ]
One thousand years of the world economy
This volume is perceived as a sequel to the study Monitoring the World Economy 1820-1992, which the same author wrote in 1996, even though he covers the preceding period from 1000 to 1820. He focuses on the growth of population and national income during that time, whereby he not only views the world as a whole but also singles out some regions and countries and compares them with each other. Besides documenting long-term trends, the author claims to explain why today's wealthy countries were so successful, what factors hindered the success of the rest of the world, and what interactions there are between the two phenomena.
Compared with other, similarly designed studies such as David S. Landes' The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, the theoretical yield is rather meagre. Maddison attributes the growth of population and income to three interwoven processes. First, the settlement of new regions and the opportunity it offered to exploit new resources. Second, international trade and its concomitant movements of capital. And third, technical and institutional innovations which benefited shipbuilding and navigation or the financial sector in particular. In addition came the establishment of modern sciences in Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The implicit argument behind these comments is: the development of Western Europe is to be attributed to settlement colonisation, the establishment of an international division of labour, and scientific-technical progress. Where these factors were effective, such as in North America, development could take place; where they were not, development was blocked. True, Maddison notes that Western Europe began in about 1500 to catch up on Asia's lead in development until then. But the reader does not learn why that was the case, and why Asia today, at the beginning of the new millennium, is now in the reverse position of catching up with the western lead. The lack of exposition here is due not least to the fact that Maddison hardly makes other factors such as political constitutions or social systems a subject of discussion.
The real value of this volume lies then not so much in its analytical section as in its extensive statistical material. This presents important indicators for development over long periods of time both for individual countries and large regions. In that respect, the volume is to be used more as annotated statistical survey of economic history. For instance, it details the growth of per capita income in Western Europe and Asia from 1500 to 1820, although with the amazing finding that, according to Maddison, these were much higher in the latter than in the former. Even if these data contradict his analytical finding that Europe during this period had overtaken Asia in economic terms, this fact does not diminish the usefulness of the volume as a reference work on the history of development. Ulrich Menzel
Angus Maddison: The World Economy. A Millennial Perspective. Paris, OECD 2001, 383 pp., Euro 29.00, ISBN 92-64-18608-5
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