Angus Maddison

Dynamic forces in capitalist development : a long-run comparative view

Introduction Interpreting Capitalist Development Changes in Economic Leadership Long-run Dynamic Forces in Capitalist Development Fluctuations in the Momentum of Growth Acceleration, Slow-down, and Convergence after 1950 The Role of Policy in Economic Performance since 1950

A Long-Run Perspective on Saving

Historical estimates of long-run gross savings rates are provided for eleven countries, which represent about 48 percent of world product in real terms and close to half of world savings. Even though savings rates declined over the past decade in nine of the eleven countries, present rates are usually well above their prewar levels. Factors that influence savings rates are also examined. Copyright 1992 by The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics.

A Comparison of Levels of GDP Per Capita in Developed and Developing Countries, 1700–1980

This paper examines the evolution of the per capita income gap between developed and developing countries. Landes and Kuznets suggest that Western countries already had a big lead before their economic growth accelerated, but Bairoch has recently claimed that European living standards in the mid-eighteenth century were lower than in the rest of the world. I think the existing evidence supports the Landes-Kuznets position, and that Bairoch probably overstates the contemporary income gap and understates per capita income growth in the developing world. But there are contradictory elements in the evidence, on which further research is needed.

Dutch Income in and from Indonesia 1700–1938

This paper attempts to establish broad orders of magnitude for the colonial period as a whole, and the results are necessarily rough and tentative. Nevertheless, this kind of quantitative macroestimation is useful in illuminating the plausible size of the magnitudes which are usually implicit in qualitative assessment.

Shares of the Rich and the Rest in the World Economy: Income Divergence between Nations, 1820-2030

This paper analyses the forces determining per capita income levels of nations over the past millennium and the prospects to 2030. In the year 1000, Asian countries were in the lead. By 1820, per capita gross domestic product in Western Europe and the USA was twice the Asian average. The divergence had grown much bigger by 1950, but by the 1970s, several Asian countries Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore had achieved considerable catch-up. Since then, there has been a major surge in China and the beginning of a similar phenomenon in India. As a result, the Asian share of world income has risen steadily and, by 2030, will be fairly close to what it was in 1820. I conclude by comparing my projections for 2030 with those of Goldman Sachs, Perkins and Rawski, and Fogel.

DO OFFICIAL STATISTICS EXAGGERATE CHINA's GDP GROWTH? A REPLY TO CARSTEN HOLZ

No abstract available.

MEASURING THE ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE OF TRANSITION ECONOMIES: SOME LESSONS FROM CHINESE EXPERIENCE

This article quantifies the comparative performance of China in several dimensions. Firstly, it shows that Chinas move from a command to a market economy was less abrupt and more successful than that of 29 other economies making a similar transition. Secondly, while official estimates show annual GDP growth of 9.6 percent in 1978–2003, this is reduced to 7.9 percent after adjustment for exaggeration of industrial performance and growth in non-material services. Thirdly, as the exchange rate understates Chinas achievement, a purchasing power parity (PPP) converter is necessary to measure comparative level of performance. Our PPP converter shows that China in 2005 was the worlds second largest economy, with a GDP about 80 percent of the U.S. It is assumed that China will have overtaken the U.S. as the worlds biggest economy before 2015. Until recently, the World Bank estimate of the PPP for China was close to that of Maddison, but the Banks new estimate for 2005 shows Chinese GDP about half this level. The Banks new estimates for China and other Asian countries are not plausible, and this paper advances several reasons for rejecting them. Finally, energy use per head of population is a good deal smaller than that of the U.S., and its total energy use for a much bigger population is likely to be somewhat smaller than that of the U.S. in 2030. However, heavy dependence on dirty coal means that it will have bigger carbon emissions than the U.S. This is a major problem as Beijing and other big cities already have severe pollution problems.

Causal Influences on Productivity Performance 1820-1992: A Global Perspective

This paper has three main purposes: a) it uses a comparative quantitative framework to demonstrate the pace of economic growth in different parts of the world economy since 1820, and to identify the major causes which have been operative; b) it analyses the different approaches which economists have developed to interpret proximate growth causality; and (c) it reviews the role of institutions and other deeper and less measurable influences on growth performance.

ECONOMIC STAGNATION SINCE 1973, ITS NATURE AND CAUSES - A 6 COUNTRY SURVEY

SummaryThis paper analyses the stagnation experience of the five biggest Western economies and the Netherlands since 1973 in historical perspective. If finds that the slowdown is due to three causes: (1) longer term productivity deceleration; (2) inevitable production/employment disturbance caused in absorbing the two OPEC shocks and the collapse of the Bretton Woods payments arrangements; (3) the switch to overcautious macropolicy as embodied in a new ‘establishment view,’ which keeps growth below potential, as did the ‘Treasury view’ which Keynes attacked in pre-war years.

Alternative estimates of the real product of India, 1900-46

The second volume of the recently published Cambridge Economic History of India (Kumar and Desai, 1983) includes a lengthy article by Alan Heston which surveys the literature on measurement of Indian economic growth, and provides new annual estimates of net domestic product (NDP) and net national income (NNI) for fiscal years 1884-1946, and for three earlier years beginning 1868 for undivided India. This note is concerned only with the period 1900-46. It compares Heston’s estimates with those of Sivasubramonian (1965) and Maddison (1971). In fact both Heston’s and Maddison’s estimates were based mainly on Sivasubramonian’s unpublished series, with two main modifications which give higher growth estimates for crops, and lower estimates for growth in services. In the case of Heston the impact of the adjustments in offsetting and his NDP growth is virtually the same of that of Sivasubramonian, whereas my estimate showed substantially lower growth than both of these. Heston criticises the level of my estimates and on reworking them, I discovered that I had made an error for agriculture. Correction of this lowers my estimate of the NDP level but does not significantly affect the estimate of growth. I still