利用者:デザート/大分岐

マディソンによる1500年から1950年までのヨーロッパおよびアジア諸国の購買力平価による一人当たりGDPの推定値（英語: List of regions by past GDP (PPP) per capita#1–2008 (Maddison)）（1990年国際ドル）。19世紀における日本と西洋のの爆発的成長を示している。

大分岐（英語: Great Divergence）または欧州の奇跡（英語: European miracle）とは、西洋諸国が前近代的な成長限界を克服し、19世紀、覇権国家として台頭したという社会経済学的現象である。例えば、清王朝、ムガル帝国、オスマン帝国、サファヴィー朝、江戸幕府など、大分岐以前に強権を振るった国々を凌駕した。

この現象を説明するために、地理学、文化、知能、制度、植民地主義、資源に基づく理論があるほか、「ただの偶然である」と主張する人もある。

ともかく、「大きな分岐」の始まりは、一般に16世紀または15世紀…ルネサンスと大航海時代における商業革命、重商主義、資本主義の起源、西洋帝国主義の台頭、世界の一体化、科学革命、啓蒙時代などがそれに当たると言われている。

強いて言えば、もっとも「分岐」がひどくなったのは、18世紀後半から19世紀にかけての産業革命と技術革命であるから、カリフォルニア学派はこの時期だけを大分岐とみなしている。

交通、鉱業、農業などの分野における技術の進歩は、大分岐の間、東部よりも西部ユーラシアでより高度に受け入れられた。技術によって工業化が進み、農業、貿易、燃料、資源の分野で経済が複雑化し、東西の隔たりがさらに大きくなった。西洋は、19世紀半ばに木材に代わるエネルギーとして石炭を利用したことで、近代的なエネルギー生産において大きく先行することになった。20世紀、大分岐は第一次世界大戦前にピークを迎え、1970年代初頭まで続いた。その後、20年にわたる不確定な変動の後、1980年代後半には大収束に取って代わられ、大多数の発展途上国がほとんどの先進国の経済成長率を大幅に上回る経済成長率を達成した。

用語とその定義

「大分岐」という言葉は、1996年サミュエル・P・ハンティントンによってつくられ、ケネス・ポメランツが著書『The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (2000)』にて用いられた。同様の現象がエリック・ジョーンズによって論じられており、著書『The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia』は欧州の奇跡という言葉を広めた。大まかにいえば、両者は近代において西洋諸国が他の地域に比べ、大きく発展した、ということを意味しているのである。

その時期については、歴史学者の間で論争がある。一般的には16世紀と言われており、このあたりから欧州は高度成長の軌道に乗った、というのである。カリフォルニア学派のポラメンツらは、最も急速に分岐したのは19世紀だという。当時の西洋人の栄養状態と慢性的な貿易赤字を理由として、同時期アジア諸国の中には西洋諸国と匹敵するほどの経済力を有していた国が存在していると述べる。経済史家のプラサナン・パルタサラティは南インド、特にマイソールの賃金はロンドンに匹敵するなどと主張しているが、証拠は散逸しており、結論を出すためにはさらなる研究が待たれる状況である。

大分岐の要因は、ルネサンスや科挙など、それ以前の時代や制度に端を発するという意見もある。経済学者のスティーブン・ブロードベリーは、銀賃金ではアジアの最有力地域でも16世紀には西洋に遅れを取っていたといい、イングランドと揚子江デルタを比較した統計を引いて16世紀までにイングランドは後者の平均賃金の3倍、小麦換算で15％都市開発が進んでいたと示した。イングランドの銀賃金も16世紀後半にはインドの約5倍である。穀物賃金の相対的な高さは穀物の豊富さを示し、銀賃金の低さは全体的な発展水準が低かったことを繁栄している。穀物賃金の乖離が激しくなるのは18世紀初頭からでイギリスの賃金が小麦換算でインド、中国の2.5倍であるのに対し、以前5倍の値を保っていた。ブロードベリーは南アジア、中央アジア、東欧の賃金は19世紀初頭までアジアの先進地域と同等であったと述べる。

大分岐以前のユーラシア大陸主要地域

「なぜイスラム教国家に比べ貧弱だったキリスト教国家が現代になりかくも多くの土地を奪い始め、かつて強勢を誇ったオスマン帝国軍さえも破るようになったのか」（中略）「すなわち彼らには理性によって発明された法律や規則があるからなのである。」 — イブラヒム・ミュテフェッリカ、『国家政治の合理的基礎』(1731)

ユーラシア大陸の主要地域は18世紀までにそれなりの生活水準に達したが、土地不足、土壌の劣化、森林伐採、信頼に足るエネルギー源の不足、その他生態学的の制約が成長を阻害した。減価滅却の憂き目のために、大分岐の経済活動ではその貯蓄のほとんどを枯渇した資本を大量に確保する必要があるため、貯蓄は妨げられた。継続的な成長と貯蓄のため、人々は燃料、土地、食料、その他資源を大量に確保する必要に駆られ、植民地主義へと繋がったのである。

産業革命はこうした制約を克服して、史上始めて一人当たりGDPを「伸ばし続ける」ことに成功した。

西洋

詳細は「ヨーロッパ経済史（10世紀~現在）（英語: Economic history of Europe (1000 AD–present)）」を参照

ヴァイキング、ムスリム、マジャール人の侵掠の後、西洋は中世と呼ばれる時代に入った。この時代には、人口増加や領土拡大のために交易、商業が活性化し、農村と都市の職人の専門化が進んだ。13世紀になると良質の土地は専有され、農業収入は減少し始めたが、商業は特に北イタリアで拡大を続けた。しかし、14世紀には飢饉、戦争、黒死病、その他疫病という災難が相次いだ。

経済成長の歴史的起源では、黒死病が成長に追い風を吹かせた可能性を検証している。黒死病による労働力不足は女性の労働力参入を促し、農業労働力の市場を活性化させた。その結果、人口は減少し、賃借料は下がり、賃金は上昇し、中世ヨーロッパを特徴づけていた封建的・荘園的関係が損なわれた。

2014年の研究によれば、「14世紀初頭から19世紀初頭にかけて、欧州内には『小さな分岐』があった。北海地方の実質賃金は黒死病の後に達成された水準でほぼ安定し、近世を通じて比較的高い水準を維持したのに対し、『周辺部』の実質賃金は15世紀以降に下がり始め、16世紀から300年かけてある種の自給自足の最低水準に戻った。欧州の『周辺部』では16世紀から19世紀にかけて一人当たりGDPがほとんど伸びなかったのに対して、英蘭では実質所得が上昇し続け、この期間に多かれ少なかれ倍増した」。

大航海時代には、アメリカ大陸や東アジアへ至る航路が開拓され、株式会社や金融機関などの革新とともに商業がさらに拡大した。

軍事革命は巨大な軍隊を支え、商業を拡大する国家が国力を伸ばした。ネーデルラント連邦共和国は商業国家となり、イングランド王国は名誉革命で議会が政権を奪取した。16世紀末、ロンドンとアントウェルペンが急速に力を伸ばし始めた。貿易と議会が経済発展を促進したのである。これを示したのが次の図である。

15-18世紀における欧州各都市の実質賃金の推移

ジャック・ゴールドストーン（英語: Jack Goldstone）による2021年の見立てによれば、大分岐は北西ヨーロッパで1750年以降にのみ生じた。それ以前は経済成長率は持続的でも顕著でもなく、一人当たりの所得は「イタリアや中国の最も発展した地域で数百年前に達した最盛」に近かった。

西洋には、炭鉱、アメリカ大陸の発見による経済成長への生態学的な制約の緩和、植民地からの搾取による利益などアジアより独特の優位性をもっていたことには留意したい。

中国

詳細は「辛亥革命以前の中国経済史（英語: Economic history of China before 1912）」を参照

中国大陸と欧州大陸の人口比較 * 1000-1975 * 百万人、対数スケール

中国は過去2000年の間、欧州全体よりも人口が多かった。欧州と異なるのは、基本的に統一王朝が存在していたことである。宋代には農業、水運、金融、都市開発、科学において革新が起こり、12世紀頃には経済でその他大国を圧倒するようになった。水田耕作の発展により、華南の開発が進んだ一方、華北は女真族やモンゴル人の掠奪、洪水、疫病によって荒廃した。結果、政治経済の中心が殷王朝以来の華北から華南へと劇的に移行した。14世紀には、中国全体の生活水準はイタリアにも遅れを取り、14世紀までにはイギリスにも追いつかれたが、揚子江デルタは18世紀初頭まで欧州と同等の水準を保っていた可能性がある。

明王朝と清王朝の時代には、生産性の向上は見られなかったが低い税で経済は活性化し、人口も増大した。絹、茶、陶磁器などの特産品は欧州で大きな需要があって、銀の流入が通貨供給量を拡大し、競争的で安定的な市場の成長を促進したからである。18世紀末には、人口密度は欧州のそれを上回った。なお、大都市が多く形成された反面、地方の小都市が遥かに少なかった点に留意したい。ポラメンツは18世紀初頭から半ばまでの期間で大分岐が始まったと見ている。

インド

詳細は「インド経済史（英語: Economic history of India）」を参照

アンガス・マディソンによる紀元1年から2003年までの世界の地域別GDP（購買力平価）に対する世界の貢献度の推計。18世紀までは、中国とインドが最も生産性の高い地域だったことがわかる。

2020年の研究によると、北インドとイギリスの間の大分岐は17世紀後半に始まった。さらに1720年以降にはどんどん拡大し始め、1800年代以降には爆発的に増加した。この研究では、「生活水準に最も深刻な違いをもたらしたのは、主に19世紀前半のイギリスの急成長と、インドの停滞」であることがわかった。

歴史上、インド、特にベンガル・スルターン朝は商業大国で、大規模な対外貿易と国内取引の恩恵を受けてきた。効率的な一次、二次産業を持ち、中国、日本、西洋、中欧とは違い19,20世紀まで大規模な森林破壊を経験しなかった。17世紀以降、ムガル帝国の綿織物は欧州で人気を博し、自国の毛織物産業保護のため綿織物を禁じたところもある。特に発展したベンガルは、織物や造船で世界的に著名だった。

近世ヨーロッパでは、ムガル帝国の輸出品に需要があった。例えば、欧州の衣類は綿織物や絹織物に依存していった。一方インドでは基本内需のみで経済が完結しており、西洋人が提供できるものといえば毛織物、鉱石、一部の奢侈品などであった。この貿易不均衡のため、西洋人はインドへ大量の金銀を輸出することになって、ますますムガル帝国は発展した。

中東

詳細は「オスマン帝国経済史（英語: Economic history of the Ottoman Empire）」を参照

「イスラーム黄金時代」も参照

中東は、10世紀頃には西洋より遥かに進んだ地域であり、16世紀なかばには同等になった、18世紀なかばには英蘭に遅れを取るようになった。

An example of a Middle Eastern country that had an advanced economy in the early 19th century was Ottoman Egypt, which had a highly productive industrial manufacturing sector, and per-capita income that was comparable to leading Western European countries such as France and higher than that of Japan and Eastern Europe. Other parts of the Ottoman Empire, particularly Syria and southeastern Anatolia, also had a highly productive manufacturing sector that was evolving in the 19th century. In 1819, Egypt under Muhammad Ali began programs of state-sponsored industrialization, which included setting up factories for weapons production, an iron foundry, large-scale cotton cultivation, mills for ginning, spinning and weaving of cotton, and enterprises for agricultural processing. By the early 1830s, Egypt had 30 cotton mills, employing about 30,000 workers. In the early 19th century, Egypt had the world's fifth most productive cotton industry, in terms of the number of spindles per capita. The industry was initially driven by machinery that relied on traditional energy sources, such as animal power, water wheels, and windmills, which were also the principle energy sources in Western Europe up until around 1870. While steam power had been experimented with in Ottoman Egypt by engineer Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf in 1551, when he invented a steam jack driven by a rudimentary steam turbine, it was under Muhammad Ali of Egypt in the early 19th century that steam engines were introduced to Egyptian industrial manufacturing. Boilers were manufactured and installed in Egyptian industries such as ironworks, textile manufacturing, paper mills, and hulling mills. Compared to Western Europe, Egypt also had superior agriculture and an efficient transport network through the Nile. Economic historian Jean Batou argues that the necessary economic conditions for rapid industrialization existed in Egypt during the 1820s–1830s.

19世紀初頭に大きく発展を遂げた国としては、オスマン帝国領エジプトがあげられる。エジプトには高い生産性をもった二次産業があり、一人あたりの所得は西洋に匹敵し、日本や東欧より高かった。同時期の帝国の他の地域、特にシリア、南東アナトリアも発展していたと言える。1819年のムハンマド・アリー朝エジプトは軍需工場、製鉄所、大綿花農場とその製糸紡績工場、農作物の加工企業などの設立を進める工業化計画の真っ最中であった。1830年代初頭には30の綿工場と約3万の雇用があった。これは、国民一人あたりの紡錘機の一で世界5位の値である。16世紀なかばに発明された蒸気ジャッキが導入されたのもほぼ同時期である。西洋と比較しエジプトは農業に優れ、ナイル川を通じた効率的な輸送網ももっていた。経済史学者のジャン・バトウは急速な工業化に必要な条件が1820-30年代のエジプトに存在していたと主張している。

After the death of Muhammad Ali in 1849, his industrialization programs fell into decline, after which, according to historian Zachary Lockman, "Egypt was well on its way to full integration into a European-dominated world market as supplier of a single raw material, cotton." Lockman argues that, had Egypt succeeded in its industrialization programs, "it might have shared with Japan [or the United States] the distinction of achieving autonomous capitalist development and preserving its independence."

Japan

詳細は「Economic history of Japan」を参照

Japanese society was governed by the Tokugawa shogunate, which divided Japanese society into a strict hierarchy and intervened considerably in the economy through state monopolies and restrictions on foreign trade; however, in practice, the Shogunate's rule was often circumvented. From 725 to 1974, Japan experienced GDP per capita growth at an annual rate of 0.04%, with major periods of positive per capita GDP growth occurring during 1150–1280, 1450–1600 and after 1730. There were no significant periods of sustained growth reversals. Relative to the United Kingdom, GDP per capita was at roughly similar levels until the middle of the 17th century. By 1850, per capita incomes in Japan were approximately a quarter of the British level. However, 18th-century Japan had a higher life expectancy, 41.1 years for adult males, compared with 31.6 to 34 for England, between 27.5 and 30 for France, and 24.7 for Prussia.

Sub-Saharan Africa

詳細は「Economic history of Africa」を参照

Pre-colonial sub-Saharan Africa was politically fragmented, just as early modern Europe was. Africa was home to numerous wealthy empires which grew around coastal areas or large rivers that served as part of important trade routes. Africa was however far more sparsely populated than Europe. According to University of Michigan political scientist Mark Dincecco, "the high land/ labor ratio may have made it less likely that historical institutional centralization at the "national level" would occur in sub-Saharan Africa, thwarting further state development." The transatlantic slave trade may have further weakened state power in Africa.

A series of states developed in the Sahel on the southern edge of the Sahara which made immense profits from trading across the Sahara, trading heavily in gold and slaves for the trans-Saharan slave trade. Kingdoms in the heavily forested regions of West Africa were also part of trade networks. The growth of trade in this area was driven by the Yoruba civilization, which was supported by cities surrounded by farmed land and made wealthy by extensive trade development.

For most of the first millennium AD, the Axumite Kingdom in East Africa had a powerful navy and trading links reaching as far as the Byzantine Empire and India. Between the 14th and 17th centuries, the Ajuran Sultanate in modern-day Somalia practiced hydraulic engineering and developed new systems for agriculture and taxation, which continued to be used in parts of the Horn of Africa as late as the 19th century.

On the east coast of Africa, Swahili kingdoms had a prosperous trading empire. Swahili cities were important trading ports along the Indian Ocean, engaging in trade with the Middle East and Far East. Kingdoms in southeast Africa also developed extensive trade links with other civilizations as far away as China and India. The institutional framework for long-distance trade across political and cultural boundaries had long been strengthened by the adoption of Islam as a cultural and moral foundation for trust among and with traders.

Possible factors

Scholars have proposed numerous theories to explain why the Great Divergence occurred.

Coal

The distribution of coal deposits shaped industrial development in Britain.

In metallurgy and steam engines the Industrial Revolution made extensive use of coal and coke – as cheaper, more plentiful and more efficient than wood and charcoal. Coal-fired steam engines also operated in the railways and in shipping, revolutionizing transport in the early 19th century. Kenneth Pomeranz drew attention to differences in the availability of coal between West and East. Due to regional climate, European coal mines were wetter, and deep mines did not become practical until the introduction of the Newcomen steam engine to pump out groundwater. In mines in the arid northwest of China, ventilation to prevent explosions was much more difficult.

Another difference involved geographic distance; although China and Europe had comparable mining technologies, the distances between the economically developed regions and coal deposits differed vastly. The largest coal deposits in China are located in the northwest, within reach of the Chinese industrial core during the Northern Song (960–1127). During the 11th century China developed sophisticated technologies to extract and use coal for energy, leading to soaring iron production. The southward population shift between the 12th and 14th centuries resulted in new centers of Chinese industry far from the major coal deposits. Some small coal deposits were available locally, though their use was sometimes hampered by government regulations. In contrast, Britain contained some of the largest coal deposits in Europe – all within a relatively compact island.

The centrality of coal to Industrial revolution was criticized by Gregory Clark and David Jacks, who show that coal could be substituted without much loss of national income. Similarly Deirdre N. McCloskey says that coal could easily have been imported to Britain from other countries. Moreover, the Chinese could move their industries closer to coal reserves.

New World

詳細は「European colonization of the Americas」を参照

Distribution of colonial empires by the end of the 18th century

A variety of theories posit Europe's unique relationship with the New World as a major cause of the Great Divergence. The high profits earned from the colonies and the slave trade constituted 7 percent a year, a relatively high rate of return considering the high rate of depreciation on pre-industrial capital stocks, which limited the amount of savings and capital accumulation. Early European colonization was sustained by profits through selling New World goods to Asia, especially silver to China. According to Pomeranz, the most important advantage for Europe was the vast amount of fertile, uncultivated land in the Americas which could be used to grow large quantities of farm products required to sustain European economic growth and allowed labor and land to be freed up in Europe for industrialization. New World exports of wood, cotton, and wool are estimated to have saved England the need for 23 to 25 millionエーカー (100,000 km²) of cultivated land (by comparison, the total amount of cultivated land in England was just 17 million acres), freeing up immense amounts of resources. The New World also served as a market for European manufactures.

Chen (2012) also suggested that the New World as a necessary factor for industrialization, and trade as a supporting factor causing less developed areas to concentrate on agriculture supporting industrialized regions in Europe.

Political fragmentation

Political maps of the world in 1556, 1700, and 1859.

Jared Diamond and Peter Watson argue that a notable feature of Europe's geography was that it encouraged political balkanization, such as having several large peninsulas and natural barriers such as mountains and straits that provided defensible borders. By contrast, China's geography encouraged political unity, with a much smoother coastline and a heartland dominated by two river valleys (Yellow and Yangtze).

Thanks to the topographical structure with "its mountain chains, coasts, and major marches , formed boundaries at which states expanding from the core areas could meet and pause…". Hence, this helps European countries feel "in the same boat". Due to the location of mountain ranges, there were several distinct geographical cores that could provide the nuclei for future states. Another point in Europe’s political fragmentation in comparison to, for example, China is the location of the Eurasian steppe. After horse domestication, steppe nomads (for instance, Genghis Khan and the Mongols) posed a threat to the sedentary population until the 18th century. The reason for the threat is "the fragile ecology of the steppe meant that during periods of drought or cold weather, steppe nomads were more likely to invade neighboring populations". Hence, this stimulated China, which is near the steppe, to build a strong, unified state.

In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond argues that advanced cultures outside Europe had developed in areas whose geography was conducive to large, monolithic, isolated empires. In these conditions policies of technological and social stagnation could persist. He gives the example of China in 1432, when the Xuande Emperor outlawed the building of ocean-going ships, in which China was the world leader at the time. On the other hand, Christopher Columbus obtained sponsorship from Queen Isabella I of Castile for his expedition even though three other European rulers turned it down. As a result, governments that suppressed economic and technological progress soon corrected their mistakes or were out-competed relatively quickly. He argues that these factors created the conditions for more rapid internal superpower change (Spain succeeded by France and then by the United Kingdom) than was possible elsewhere in Eurasia.

Justin Yifu Lin argued that China's large population size proved beneficial in technological advancements prior to the 14th century, but that the large population size was not an important factor in the kind of technological advancements that resulted in the Industrial Revolution. Early technological advancements depended on "learning by doing" (where population size was an important factor, as advances could spread over a large political unit), whereas the Industrial Revolution was the result of experimentation and theory (where population size is less important). Before Europe took some steps towards technology and trade, there was an issue with the importance of education. By 1800, literacy rates were 68% in the Netherlands and 50% in Britain and Belgium, whereas in non-European societies, literacy rates started to rise in the 20th century. At the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, there was no demand for skilled labor. However, during the next phases of the Industrial Revolution, factors that influence worker productivity—education, training, skills, and health—were the primary purpose.

Economic historian Joel Mokyr has argued that political fragmentation (the presence of a large number of European states) made it possible for heterodox ideas to thrive, as entrepreneurs, innovators, ideologues and heretics could easily flee to a neighboring state in the event that the one state would try to suppress their ideas and activities. This is what set Europe apart from the technologically advanced, large unitary empires such as China. China had both a printing press and movable type, yet the industrial revolution would occur in Europe. In Europe, political fragmentation was coupled with an "integrated market for ideas" where Europe's intellectuals used the lingua franca of Latin, had a shared intellectual basis in Europe's classical heritage and the pan-European institution of the Republic of Letters. The historian Niall Ferguson attributes this divergence to the West's development of six "killer apps", which he finds were largely missing elsewhere in the world in 1500 – "competition, the scientific method, the rule of law, modern medicine, consumerism and the work ethic".

Economic historian Tuan-Hwee Sng has argued that the large size of the Chinese state contributed to its relative decline in the 19th century:

The vast size of the Chinese empire created a severe principal–agent problem and constrained how the country was governed. In particular, taxes had to be kept low due to the emperor's weak oversight of his agents and the need to keep corruption in check. The Chinese state's fiscal weaknesses were long masked by its huge tax base. However, economic and demographic expansion in the eighteenth century exacerbated the problems of administrative control. This put a further squeeze on the nation's finances and left China ill-prepared for the challenges of the nineteenth century.

One reason why Japan was able to modernize and adopt the technologies of the West was due to its much smaller size relative to China. Stanford political scientist Gary W. Cox argues in a 2017 study,

that Europe's political fragmentation interacted with her institutional innovations to foster substantial areas of "economic liberty," where European merchants could organize production freer of central regulation, faced fewer central restrictions on their shipping and pricing decisions, and paid lower tariffs and tolls than their counterparts elsewhere in Eurasia. When fragmentation afforded merchants multiple politically independent routes on which to ship their goods, European rulers refrained from imposing onerous regulations and levying arbitrary tolls, lest they lose mercantile traffic to competing realms. Fragmented control of trade routes magnified the spillover effects of political reforms. If parliament curbed arbitrary regulations and tolls in one realm, then neighboring rulers might have to respond in kind, even if they themselves remained without a parliament. Greater economic liberty, fostered by the interaction of fragmentation and reform, unleashed faster and more inter-connected urban growth.

Other geographic factors

Fernand Braudel of the Annales school of historians argued that the Mediterranean Sea was poor for fishing due to its depth, therefore encouraging long-distance trade. Furthermore, the Alps and other parts of the Alpide belt supplied the coastal regions with fresh migrants from the uplands. This helped the spread of ideas, as did the east–west axis of the Mediterranean which lined up with the prevailing winds and its many archipelagos which together aided navigation, as was also done by the great rivers which brought inland access, all of which further increased immigration. The peninsulas of the Mediterranean also promoted political nationalism which brought international competition. One of the geographical issues that affected the economies of Europe and the Middle East is the discovery of the Americas and the Cape Route around Africa. The old trade routes became useless, which led to the economic decline of cities both in Central Asia and the Middle East and, moreover, in Italy.

Testing theories related to geographic endowments economists William Easterly and Ross Levine find evidence that tropics, germs, and crops affect development through institutions. They find no evidence that tropics, germs, and crops affect country incomes directly other than through institutions, nor did they find any effect of policies on development once controls for institutions were implemented. However, there is the opposite argument to the abovementioned statement. In the 16th century in Ireland, potato cultivation became popular as this crop was perfectly suited to the Irish soil and climate. Hence, it raised farmers' incomes in the short run, and the peasants' quality of life rose with the increase in their calorie consumption. The majority of the population was dependent on potatoes. In the 19th century, a new fungus, late blight, was ravaging potato crops in the U.S. and then Europe. In 1845, half of the potatoes were blighted; in 1845, three-quarters were. The result was the Great Famine (1845–1849).

Innovation

Beginning in the early 19th century, economic prosperity rose greatly in the West due to improvements in technological efficiency, as evidenced by the advent of new conveniences including the railroad, steamboat, steam engine, and the use of coal as a fuel source. These innovations contributed to the Great Divergence, elevating Europe and the United States to high economic standing relative to the East.

It has been argued the attitude of the East towards innovation is one of the other factors that might have played a big role in the West's advancements over the East. According to David Landes, after a few centuries of innovations and inventions, it seemed like the East stopped trying to innovate and began to sustain what they had. They kept nurturing their pre-modern inventions and did not move forward with the modern times. China decided to continue a self-sustaining process of scientific and technological advancement on the basis of their indigenous traditions and achievements. The East's attitude towards innovation showed that they focused more on experience, while the West focused on experimentation. The East did not see the need to improve on their inventions and thus from experience, focused on their past successes. While they did this, the West was focused more on experimentation and trial by error, which led them to come up with new and different ways to improve on existing innovations and create new ones.

Efficiency of markets and state intervention

A common argument is that Europe had more free and efficient markets than other civilizations, which has been cited as a reason for the Great Divergence. In Europe, market efficiency was disrupted by the prevalence of feudalism and mercantilism. Practices such as entail, which restricted land ownership, hampered the free flow of labor and buying and selling of land. These feudal restrictions on land ownership were especially strong in continental Europe. China had a relatively more liberal land market, hampered only by weak customary traditions. Bound labor, such as serfdom and slavery were more prevalent in Europe than in China, even during the Manchu conquest. Urban industry in the West was more restrained by guilds and state-enforced monopolies than in China, where in the 18th century the principal monopolies governed salt and foreign trade through Guangzhou. Pomeranz rejects the view that market institutions were the cause of the Great Divergence, and concludes that China was closer to the ideal of a market economy than Europe.

Economic historian Paul Bairoch presents a contrary argument, that Western countries such as the United States, Britain and Spain did not initially have free trade, but had protectionist policies in the early 19th century, as did China and Japan. In contrast, he cites the Ottoman Empire as an example of a state that did have free trade, which he argues had a negative economic impact and contributed to its deindustrialization. The Ottoman Empire had a liberal trade policy, open to foreign imports, which has origins in capitulations of the Ottoman Empire, dating back to the first commercial treaties signed with France in 1536 and taken further with capitulations in 1673 and 1740, which lowered duties to only 3% for imports and exports. The liberal Ottoman policies were praised by British economists advocating free trade, such as J. R. McCulloch in his Dictionary of Commerce (1834), but later criticized by British politicians opposing free trade, such as prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, who cited the Ottoman Empire as "an instance of the injury done by unrestrained competition" in the 1846 Corn Laws debate:

There has been free trade in Turkey, and what has it produced? It has destroyed some of the finest manufactures of the world. As late as 1812 these manufactures existed; but they have been destroyed. That was the consequences of competition in Turkey, and its effects have been as pernicious as the effects of the contrary principle in Spain.

Wages and living standards

Classical economists, beginning with Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus, argued that high wages in the West stimulated labor-saving technological advancements.

Revisionist studies in the mid to late 20th century have depicted living standards in 18th century China and pre-Industrial Revolution Europe as comparable. According to Pomeranz life expectancy in China and Japan was comparable to the advanced parts of Europe. Similarly Chinese consumption per capita in calories intake is comparable to England. According to Pomeranz and others, there was modest per capita growth in both regions, the Chinese economy was not stagnant, and in many areas, especially agriculture, was ahead of Western Europe. Chinese cities were also ahead in public health. Economic historian Paul Bairoch estimated that China's GNP per capita in 1800 was $228 in 1960 US dollars ($1,007 in 1990 dollars), higher than Western Europe's $213 ($941 in 1990 dollars) at the time.

Similarly for Ottoman Egypt, its per-capita income in 1800 was comparable to that of leading Western European countries such as France, and higher than the overall average income of Europe and Japan. Economic historian Jean Barou estimated that, in terms of 1960 dollars, Egypt in 1800 had a per-capita income of $232 ($1,025 in 1990 dollars). In comparison, per-capita income in terms of 1960 dollars for France in 1800 was $240 ($1,060 in 1990 dollars), for Eastern Europe in 1800 was $177 ($782 in 1990 dollars), and for Japan in 1800 was $180 ($795 in 1990 dollars).

According to Paul Bairoch, in the mid-18th century, "the average standard of living in Europe was a little bit lower than that of the rest of the world." He estimated that, in 1750, the average GNP per capita in the Eastern world (particularly China, India and the Middle East) was $188 in 1960 dollars ($830 in 1990 dollars), higher than the West's $182 ($804 in 1990 dollars). He argues that it was after 1800 that Western European per-capita income pulled ahead. However, the average incomes of China and Egypt were still higher than the overall average income of Europe.

According to Jan Luiten van Zanden, the relationship between GDP per capita with wages and standards of living is very complex. He gives Netherlands economic history as an example. Real wages in Netherlands declined during the early modern period between 1450 and 1800. The decline was fastest between 1450/75 and the middle of the sixteenth century, after which real wages stabilized, meaning that even during the Dutch Golden Age purchasing power did not grow. The stability remained until the middle of 18th century, after which wages declined again. Similarly citing studies of the average height of Dutch men, van Zaden shows that it declined from the Late Middle Ages. During 17th and 18th centuries, at the height of Dutch Golden Age, the average height was 166 centimeters, about 4 centimeters lower than in 14th and early 15th century. This most likely indicates consumption declines during the early modern period, and average height would not equal medieval heights until the 20th century. Meanwhile, GDP per capita increased by 35 to 55% between 1510/1514 and the 1820s. Hence it is possible that standards of living in advanced parts of Asia were comparable with Western Europe in the late 18th century, while Asian GDP per capita was about 70% lower.

Şevket Pamuk and Jan-Luiten van Zanden also show that during the Industrial Revolution, living standards in Western Europe increased little before the 1870s, as the increase in nominal wages was undermined by rising food prices. The substantial rise in living standards only started after 1870, with the arrival of cheap food from the Americas. Western European GDP grew rapidly after 1820, but real wages and the standard of living lagged behind.

According to Robert Allen, at the end of the Middle Ages, real wages were similar across Europe and at a very high level. In the 16th and 17th century wages collapsed everywhere, except in the Low Countries and London. These were the most dynamic regions of the early modern economy, and their living standards returned to the high level of the late fifteenth century. The dynamism of London spread to the rest of England in 18th century. Although there was fluctuation in real wages in England between 1500 and 1850, there was no long term rise until the last third of 19th century. And it was only after 1870 that real wages begin to rise in other cities of Europe, and only then they finally surpassed the level of late 15th century. Hence while the Industrial Revolution raised GDP per capita, it was only a century later before a substantial raise in standard of living.

However, responding to the work of Bairoch, Pomeranz, Parthasarathi and others, more subsequent research has found that parts of 18th century Western Europe did have higher wages and levels of per capita income than in much of India, Ottoman Turkey, Japan and China. However, the views of Adam Smith were found to have overgeneralized Chinese poverty. Between 1725 and 1825 laborers in Beijing and Delhi were only able to purchase a basket of goods at a subsistence level, while laborers in London and Amsterdam were able to purchase goods at between 4 and 6 times a subsistence level. As early as 1600 Indian GDP per capita was about 60% the British level. A real decline in per capita income did occur in both China and India, but in India began during the Mughal period, before British colonialism. Outside of Europe much of this decline and stagnation has been attributed to population growth in rural areas outstripping growth in cultivated land as well as internal political turmoil. Free colonials in British North America were considered by historians and economists in a survey of academics to be amongst the most well off people in the world on the eve of the American Revolution. The earliest evidence of a major health transition leading to increased life expectancy began in Europe in the 1770s, approximately one century before Asia's. Robert Allen argues that the relatively high wages in eighteenth century Britain both encouraged the adoption of labour-saving technology and worker training and education, leading to industrialisation.

Luxury consumption

Luxury consumption is regarded by many scholars to have stimulated the development of capitalism and thus contributed to the Great Divergence. Proponents of this view argue that workshops, which manufactured luxury articles for the wealthy, gradually amassed capital to expand their production and then emerged as large firms producing for a mass market; they believe that Western Europe's unique tastes for luxury stimulated this development further than other cultures. However, others counter that luxury workshops were not unique to Europe; large cities in China and Japan also possessed many luxury workshops for the wealthy, and that luxury workshops do not necessarily stimulate the development of "capitalistic firms".

Property rights

Differences in property rights have been cited as a possible cause of the Great Divergence. This view states that Asian merchants could not develop and accumulate capital because of the risk of state expropriation and claims from fellow kinsmen, which made property rights very insecure compared to those of Europe. However, others counter that many European merchants were de facto expropriated through defaults on government debt, and that the threat of expropriation by Asian states was not much greater than in Europe, except in Japan.

Government and policies are seen as an integral part of modern societies and have played a major role in how different economies have been formed. The Eastern societies had governments which were controlled by the ruling dynasties and thus, were not a separate entity. Their governments at the time lacked policies that fostered innovation and thus resulted in slow advancements. As explained by Cohen, the east had a restrictive system of trade that went against the free world market theory; there was no political liberty or policies that encouraged the capitalist market (Cohen, 1993). This was in contrast to the western society that developed commercial laws and property rights which allowed for the protection and liberty of the marketplace. Their capitalist ideals and market structures encouraged innovation.

Pomeranz (2000) argues that much of the land market in China was free, with many supposedly hereditary tenants and landlords being frequently removed or forced to sell their land. Although Chinese customary law specified that people within the village were to be offered the land first, Pomeranz states that most of the time the land was offered to more capable outsiders, and argues that China actually had a freer land market than Europe.

However, Robert Brenner and Chris Isett emphasize differences in land tenancy rights. They argue that in the lower Yangtze, most farmers either owned land or held secure tenancy at fixed rates of rent, so that neither farmers nor landlords were exposed to competition. In 15th century England, lords had lost their serfs, but were able to assert control over almost all of the land, creating a rental market for tenant farmers. This created competitive pressures against subdividing plots, and the fact that plots could not be directly passed on to sons forced them to delay marriage until they had accumulated their own possessions. Thus in England both agricultural productivity and population growth were subject to market pressures throughout the early modern period.

A 2017 study found that the presence of secure property rights in Europe and their absence in large parts of the Middle-East contributed to the increase of expensive labour-saving capital goods, such as water-mills, windmills, and cranes, in medieval Europe and their decrease in the Middle-East.

High-level equilibrium trap

詳細は「High-level equilibrium trap」を参照

The high-level equilibrium trap theory argues that China did not undergo an indigenous industrial revolution since its economy was in a stable equilibrium, where supply and demand for labor were equal, disincentivizing the development of labor-saving capital.

European colonialism

詳細は「European colonialism」を参照

A number of economic historians have argued that European colonialism played a major role in the deindustrialization of non-Western societies. Paul Bairoch, for example, cites British colonialism in India as a primary example, but also argues that European colonialism played a major role in the deindustrialization of other countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, and contributed to a sharp economic decline in Africa. Other modern economic historians have blamed British colonial rule for India's deindustrialization in particular. The colonization of India is seen as a major factor behind both India's deindustrialization and Britain's Industrial Revolution.

The historian Jeffrey G. Williamson has argued that India went through a period of deindustrialization in the latter half of the 18th century as an indirect outcome of the collapse of the Mughal Empire, with British rule later causing further deindustrialization. According to Williamson, the decline of the Mughal Empire led to a decline in agricultural productivity, which drove up food prices, then nominal wages, and then textile prices, which led to India losing a share of the world textile market to Britain even before it had superior factory technology, though Indian textiles still maintained a competitive advantage over British textiles up until the 19th century. Economic historian Prasannan Parthasarathi, however, has argued that there wasn't any such economic decline for several post-Mughal states, notably Bengal Subah and the Kingdom of Mysore, which were comparable to Britain in the late 18th century, until British colonial policies caused deindustrialization.

Gandhi promoted spinning Indian cotton cloth by hand on the spinning wheel as a self-sufficient alternative to British machine-woven imports.

Up until the 19th century, India was the world's leading cotton textile manufacturer, with Bengal and Mysore the centers of cotton production. In order to compete with Indian imports, Britons invested in labour-saving textile manufacturing technologies during their Industrial Revolution. Following political pressure from the new industrial manufacturers, in 1813, Parliament abolished the two-centuries-old, protectionist East India Company monopoly on trade with Asia and introduced import tariffs on Indian textiles. Until then, the monopoly had restricted exports of British manufactured goods to India. Exposing the Proto-industrial hand spinners and weavers in the territories the British East India Company administered in India to competition from machine spun threads, and woven fabrics, resulting in De-Proto-Industrialization, with the decline of native manufacturing opening up new markets for British goods. British colonization forced open the large Indian market to British goods while restricting Indian imports to Britain, and raw cotton was imported from India without taxes or tariffs to British factories which manufactured textiles from Indian cotton and sold them back to the Indian market. India thus served as both an important supplier of raw goods such as cotton to British factories and a large captive market for British manufactured goods. In addition, the capital amassed from Bengal following its conquest after the Battle of Plassey in 1757 was used to invest in British industries such as textile manufacturing and greatly increase British wealth. Britain eventually surpassed India as the world's leading cotton textile manufacturer in the 19th century. British colonial rule has been blamed for the subsequently dismal state of British India's economy, with investment in Indian industries limited since it was a colony.

Economic decline in India has been traced to before British colonial rule and was largely a result of increased output in other parts of the world and Mughal disintegration. India's share of world output (24.9%) was largely a function of its share of the world population around 1600. Between 1880 and 1930 total Indian cotton textile production increased from 1200 million yards to 3700 million yards. The introduction of railways into India have been a source of controversy regarding their overall impact, but evidence points to a number of positive outcomes such as higher incomes, economic integration, and famine relief. Per capita GDP decreased from $550 (in 1990 dollars) per person in 1700 under Mughal rule to $533 (in 1990 dollars) in 1820 under British rule, then increased to $618 (in 1990 dollars) in 1947 upon independence. Coal production increased in Bengal, largely to satisfy the demand of the railroads. Life expectancy increased by about 10 years between 1870 and independence.

Recent research on colonialism has been more favorable regarding its long-term impacts on growth and development. A 2001 paper by Daren Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson found that nations with temperate climates and low levels of mortality were more popular with settlers and were subjected to greater degrees of colonial rule. Those nations benefited from Europeans creating more inclusive institutions that lead to higher rates of long term growth. Subsequent research has confirmed that both how long a nation was a colony or how many Europeans settlers migrated there are positively correlated with economic development and institutional quality, although the relationships becomes stronger after 1700 and vary depending on the colonial power, with British colonies typically faring best. Acemoglu et al. also suggest that colonial profits were too small a percentage of GNP to account for the divergence directly but could account for it indirectly due to the effects it had on institutions by reducing the power of absolutist monarchies and securing property rights.

Culture

Rosenberg and Birdzell claim that the so-called Eastern culture of respect and unquestionable devotion to the ruling dynasty was as a result of a culture where the control of the dynasty led to a silent society that "did not ask questions or experiment without the approval or order from the ruling class". On the other hand, they claimed that the West of the late medieval era did not have a central authority or absolute state, which allowed for a free flow of ideas (Rosenberg, Birdzell, 1986). Moreover, there is another researcher who wrote that Christianity considered to be a critical issue to the emergence of liberal societies. This eastern culture also supposedly showed a dismissal of change due to their "fear of failure" and disregard for the imitation of outside inventions and science; this was different from the "Western culture" which they claimed to be willing to experiment and imitate others to benefit their society. They claimed that this was a culture where change was encouraged, and sense of anxiety and disregard for comfort led them to be more innovative. Max Weber argued in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism that capitalism in northern Europe evolved when the Protestant work ethic (particularly Calvinist) influenced large numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment. In his book The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism he blames Chinese culture for the non-emergence of capitalism in China. Chen (2012) similarly claims that cultural differences were the most fundamental cause for the divergence, arguing that the humanism of the Renaissance followed by the Enlightenment (including revolutionary changes in attitude towards religion) enabled a mercantile, innovative, individualistic, and capitalistic spirit. For Ming China, he claims there existed repressive measures which stifled dissenting opinions and nonconformity. He claimed that Confucianism taught that disobedience to one's superiors was supposedly tantamount to "sin". In addition Chen claimed that merchants and artificers had less prestige than they did in Western Europe. Justin Yifu Lin has argued for the role of the imperial examination system in removing the incentives for Chinese intellectuals to learn mathematics or to conduct experimentation.

However, many scholars who have studied Confucian teachings have criticized the claim that the philosophy promoted unquestionable loyalty to one's superiors and the state. The core of Confucian philosophy itself was already humanist and rationalist; it "[does] not share a belief in divine law and [does] not exalt faithfulness to a higher law as a manifestation of divine will."

One of the central teachings of Confucianism is that one should remonstrate with authority. Many Confucians throughout history disputed their superiors in order to not only prevent the superiors and the rulers from wrongdoing, but also to maintain the independent spirits of the Confucians.

Furthermore, the merchant class of China throughout all of Chinese history were usually wealthy and held considerable influence above their supposed social standing. Historians like Yu Yingshi and Billy So have shown that as Chinese society became increasingly commercialized from the Song dynasty onward, Confucianism had gradually begun to accept and even support business and trade as legitimate and viable professions, as long as merchants stayed away from unethical actions. Merchants in the meantime had also benefited from and utilized Confucian ethics in their business practices. By the Song period, the scholar-officials themselves were using intermediary agents to participate in trading. This is true especially in the Ming and Qing dynasties, when the social status of merchants had risen to such significance that by the late Ming period, many scholar-officials were unabashed to declare publicly in their official family histories that they had family members who were merchants. Consequently, while Confucianism did not actively promote profit seeking, it did not hinder China's commercial development either.

Of the developed cores of the Old World, India was distinguished by its caste system of bound labor, which hampered economic and population growth and resulted in relative underdevelopment compared to other core regions. Compared with other developed regions, India still possessed large amounts of unused resources. India's caste system gave an incentive to elites to drive their unfree laborers harder when faced with increased demand, rather than invest in new capital projects and technology. The Indian economy was characterized by vassal-lord relationships, which weakened the motive of financial profit and the development of markets; a talented artisan or merchant could not hope to gain much personal reward. Pomeranz argues that India was not a very likely site for an industrial breakthrough, despite its sophisticated commerce and technologies.

Aspects of Islamic law have been proposed as an argument for the divergence for the Muslim world. Economist Timur Kuran argues that Islamic institutions which had at earlier stages promoted development later started preventing more advanced development by hampering formation of corporations, capital accumulation, mass production, and impersonal transactions. Other similar arguments proposed include the gradual prohibition of independent religious judgements (Ijtihad) and a strong communalism which limited contacts with outside groups and the development of institutions dealing with more temporary interactions of various kinds, according to Kuran. According to historian Donald Quataert, however, the Ottoman Middle East's manufacturing sector was highly productive and evolving in the 19th century. Quataert criticizes arguments rooted in Orientalism, such as "now-discredited stereotypes concerning the inferiority of Islam", economic institutions having stopped evolving after the Islamic Golden Age, and decline of Ijtihad in religion negatively affecting economic evolution. Economic historian Paul Bairoch noted that Ottoman law promoted liberal free trade earlier than Britain and the United States, arguing that free trade had a negative economic impact on the Ottoman Empire and contributed to its deindustrialization, in contrast to the more protectionist policies of Britain and the United States in the early 19th century.

Representative government

詳細は「Representative government」を参照

A number of economists have argued that representative government was a factor in the Great Divergence. They argue that absolutist governments, where rulers are not broadly accountable, are prone to corruption and rent-seeking while hurting property rights and innovation. Representative governments however were accountable to broader segments of the population and thus had to protect property rights and not rule in arbitrary ways, which caused economic prosperity.

Globalization

詳細は「Globalization」を参照

A 2017 study in the American Economic Review found that "globalization was the major driver of the economic divergence between the rich and the poor portions of the world in the years 1850–1900." The states that benefited from globalization were "characterised by strong constraints on executive power, a distinct feature of the institutional environment that has been demonstrated to favour private investment." One of other advantages was transformation in technological power in U.S. and Europe. As an illustration, in 1839 Chinese rulers decided to ban the trade with British merchants who flooded China with opium. However, “China’s creaking imperial navy was no match for a small fleet of British gunboats, driven by steam engines and shielded with steel armour”.

Chance

A number of economic historians have posited that the Industrial Revolution may have partly occurred where and when it did due to luck and chance.

The Black Death

Historian James Belich has argued that the Black Death, a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Afro-Eurasia from 1346 to 1353, set the conditions that made the Great Divergence possible. He argues that the pandemic, which caused mass death in Europe, doubled the per capita endowment of everything. A labor scarcity led to expanded use of waterpower, wind power, and gunpowder, as well as fast-tracked innovations in water-powered blast furnaces, heavily gunned galleons, and musketry.

Economic effects

A Watt steam engine, the steam engine fuelled primarily by coal that propelled the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain and the world

The Old World methods of agriculture and production could only sustain certain lifestyles. Industrialization dramatically changed the European and American economy and allowed it to attain much higher levels of wealth and productivity than the other Old World cores. Although Western technology later spread to the East, differences in uses preserved the Western lead and accelerated the Great Divergence.

Productivity

When analyzing comparative use-efficiency, the economic concept of total factor productivity (TFP) is applied to quantify differences between countries. TFP analysis controls for differences in energy and raw material inputs across countries and is then used to calculate productivity. The difference in productivity levels, therefore, reflects efficiency of energy and raw materials use rather than the raw materials themselves. TFP analysis has shown that Western countries had higher TFP levels on average in the 19th century than Eastern countries such as India or China, showing that Western productivity had surpassed the East.

Per capita income

Some of the most striking evidence for the Great Divergence comes from data on per capita income. The West's rise to power directly coincides with per capita income in the West surpassing that in the East. This change can be attributed largely to the mass transit technologies, such as railroads and steamboats, that the West developed in the 19th century. The construction of large ships, trains, and railroads greatly increased productivity. These modes of transport made moving large quantities of coal, corn, grain, livestock and other goods across countries more efficient, greatly reducing transportation costs. These differences allowed Western productivity to exceed that of other regions.

Economic historian Paul Bairoch has estimated the GDP per capita of several major countries in 1960 US dollars after the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century, as shown below. His estimates show that the GDP per capita of Western European countries rose rapidly after industrialization.

For the 18th century, and in comparison to non-European regions, Bairoch in 1995 stated that, in the mid-18th century, "the average standard of living in Europe was a little bit lower than that of the rest of the world."

Agriculture

詳細は「British Agricultural Revolution」を参照

Before and during the early 19th century, much of continental European agriculture was underdeveloped compared to Asian Cores and England. This left Europe with abundant idle natural resources. England, on the other hand, had reached the limit of its agricultural productivity well before the beginning of the 19th century. Rather than taking the costly route of improving soil fertility, the English increased labor productivity by industrializing agriculture. From 1750 to 1850, European nations experienced population booms; however, European agriculture was barely able to keep pace with the dietary needs. Imports from the Americas, and the reduced caloric intake required by industrial workers compared to farmers allowed England to cope with the food shortages. By the turn of the 19th century, much European farmland had been eroded and depleted of nutrients. Fortunately, through improved farming techniques, the import of fertilizers, and reforestation, Europeans were able to recondition their soil and prevent food shortages from hampering industrialization. Meanwhile, many other formerly hegemonic areas of the world were struggling to feed themselves – notably China.

Fuel and resources

The global demand for wood, a major resource required for industrial growth and development, was increasing in the first half of the 19th century. A lack of interest of silviculture in Western Europe, and a lack of forested land, caused wood shortages. By the mid-19th century, forests accounted for less than 15% of land use in most Western European countries. Fuel costs rose sharply in these countries throughout the 18th century and many households and factories were forced to ration their usage, and eventually adopt forest conservation policies. It was not until the 19th century that coal began providing much needed relief to the European energy shortage. China had not begun to use coal on a large scale until around 1900, giving Europe a huge lead on modern energy production.

Through the 19th century, Europe had vast amounts of unused arable land with adequate water sources. However, this was not the case in China; most idle lands suffered from a lack of water supply, so forests had to be cultivated. Since the mid-19th century, northern China's water supplies have been declining, reducing its agricultural output. By growing cotton for textiles, rather than importing, China exacerbated its water shortage. During the 19th century, supplies of wood and land decreased considerably, greatly slowing growth of Chinese per capita incomes.

Trade

18th century triangular trade between Europe, the New World, and Africa.

During the era of European imperialism, periphery countries were often set up as specialized producers of specific resources. Although these specializations brought the periphery countries temporary economic benefit, the overall effect inhibited the industrial development of periphery territories. Cheaper resources for core countries through trade deals with specialized periphery countries allowed the core countries to advance at a much greater pace, both economically and industrially, than the rest of the world.

Europe's access to a larger quantity of raw materials and a larger market to sell its manufactured goods gave it a distinct advantage through the 19th century. In order to further industrialize, it was imperative for the developing core areas to acquire resources from less densely populated areas, since they lacked the lands required to supply these resources themselves. Europe was able to trade manufactured goods to their colonies, including the Americas, for raw materials. The same sort of trading could be seen throughout regions in China and Asia, but colonization brought a distinct advantage to the West. As these sources of raw materials began to proto-industrialize, they would turn to import substitution, depriving the hegemonic nations of a market for their manufactured goods. Since European nations had control over their colonies, they were able to prevent this from happening. Britain was able to use import substitution to its benefit when dealing with textiles from India. Through industrialization, Britain was able to increase cotton productivity enough to make it lucrative for domestic production, and overtake India as the world's leading cotton supplier. Although Britain had limited cotton imports to protect its own industries, they allowed cheap British products into colonial India from the early 19th century. The colonial administration failed to promote Indian industry, preferring to export raw materials.

Western Europe was also able to establish profitable trade with Eastern Europe. Countries such as Prussia, Bohemia and Poland had very little freedom in comparison to the West;Template:Vague forced labor left much of Eastern Europe with little time to work towards proto-industrialization and ample manpower to generate raw materials.

Guilds and journeymanship

A 2017 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics argued, "medieval European institutions such as guilds, and specific features such as journeymanship, can explain the rise of Europe relative to regions that relied on the transmission of knowledge within closed kinship systems (extended families or clans)". Guilds and journeymanship were superior for creating and disseminating knowledge, which contributed to the occurrence of the Industrial Revolution in Europe.

See also

• Colonial empire
• Deindustrialisation in 19th century India
• Economic history of China before 1912
• Eurocentrism
• History of Western civilization
• Mass production
• Modern history
• Criticism of Qing dynasty's economic performance
• Textile manufacture during the British Industrial Revolution
• Western empires

Books

• Before and Beyond Divergence
• Civilization: The West and the Rest
• The Civilizing Process
• The Clash of Civilizations
• The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation
• The European Miracle
• A Farewell to Alms
• How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity
• Great Divergence and Great Convergence
• The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy
• Guns, Germs, and Steel
• The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
• The Rise of the West
• The Wealth and Poverty of Nations
• Why the West Rules—For Now
• The WEIRDest People in the World
• The Great Escape: A Review Essay on Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity

References

Works cited

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• Batou, Jean (1991), Between Development and Underdevelopment: The Precocious Attempts at Industrialization of the Periphery, 1800–1870, Librairie Droz, ISBN 978-2-600-04293-2, https://books.google.com/books?id=HjD4SCOE6IgC 
• Brenner, Robert; Isett, Christopher (2002), “England's Divergence from China's Yangzi Delta: Property Relations, Microeconomics, and Patterns of Development”, The Journal of Asian Studies 61 (2): 609–662, doi:10.2307/2700302, JSTOR 2700302, http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=22 
• Broadberry, Stephen N.; Gupta, Bishnupriya (2005), “Cotton textiles and the great divergence: Lancashire, India and shifting competitive advantage, 1600–1850”, International Macroeconomics and Economic History Initiative, オリジナルの2013-04-14時点におけるアーカイブ。, https://archive.today/20130414113000/http://www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP5183.asp 
• Chen, Kunting (2012), “Analysis of the Great Divergence under a United Endogenous Growth Model”, Annals of Economics and Finance 13 (2): 317–353, オリジナルの2014-07-14時点におけるアーカイブ。, https://web.archive.org/web/20140714163358/http://www.aeconf.net/Articles/Nov2012/aef130204.pdf 2014年7月11日閲覧。 
• Clark, Gregory; Feenstra, Robert C. (2003), “Technology in the Great Divergence”, in Bordo, Michael D., Globalization in Historical Perspective, University of Chicago Press, pp. 277–320, doi:10.3386/w8596, ISBN 978-0-226-06600-4 
• Comin, Diego (2008), “Total Factor Productivity”, in Durlauf, Seven N., The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (2nd ed.), Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 329–331, doi:10.1057/9780230226203.1719, ISBN 978-0-333-78676-5, http://www.people.hbs.edu/dcomin/def.pdf 
• Elvin, Mark (1973), The Pattern of the Chinese Past, Stanford University Press, ISBN 978-0-8047-0876-0, https://archive.org/details/patternofchines00elvi 
• Feuerwerker, Albert (1990), “Chinese Economic History in Comparative Perspective”, in Ropp, Paul S., Heritage of China, University of California Press, pp. 224–241, ISBN 978-0-520-06441-6 
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• Hobson, John M. (2004), The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-54724-6, https://books.google.com/books?id=KQN85hrJyT4C 
• Jones, Eric (2003), The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia (3rd ed.), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-52783-5 
• Kim, Jinwung (2012), History of Korea: From "Land of the Morning Calm" to States in Conflict, Indiana University Press, ISBN 978-0-253-00024-8 
• Landes, David (2006), “Why Europe and the West? Why Not China?”, Journal of Economic Perspectives 20 (2): 3–22, doi:10.1257/jep.20.2.3 
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• Maddison, Angus (2001), The World Economy, Volume 1: A Millennial Perspective, OECD Publishing, ISBN 978-92-64-18608-8 
•     (2007), Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-922721-1 
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• North, Douglass C.; Thomas, Robert Paul (1973), The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-29099-9 
• Parthasarathi, Prasannan (2011), Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-139-49889-0 
• Pomeranz, Kenneth (2000), The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-09010-8 
• Williamson, Jeffery G. (2008), “Globalization and the Great Divergence: terms of trade booms, volatility and the poor periphery, 1782–1913”, European Review of Economic History 12 (3): 355–391, doi:10.1017/S136149160800230X 

Further reading

• “From Divergence to Convergence: Reevaluating the History Behind China's Economic Boom†”. Journal of Economic Literature 52 (1): 45–123. (2014). doi:10.1257/jel.52.1.45. https://sites.pitt.edu/~tgrawski/papers/Brandt-Ma-Rawski%20From%20Divergence%20to%20Convergence%20JEL%20v52%20no1.pdf. 
• Court, V. (2019). "A reassessment of the Great Divergence debate: towards a reconciliation of apparently distinct determinants". European Review of Economic History. doi:10.1093/ereh/hez015/5687654.
• Grinin, Leonid; Korotayev, Andrey (2015). Great Divergence and Great Convergence: A Global Perspective. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-17779-3. https://books.google.com/books?id=hSxACQAAQBAJ 
• Hoffmann, Philip T. (2015) Why Did Europe Conquer the World? Princeton, Princeton University Press
• Rubin, Jared (2017) Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
• Olstein, Diego. (2017) “Latin America in Global History: An Historiographic Overview”. Estudos Historicos, 30:60, pp. 253–272. summary
• Root, Hilton L. (2020). Network Origins of the Global Economy: East vs. West in a Complex Systems Perspective. Cambridge University Press.
• Scheidel, Walter (2008). “From the 'Great Convergence' to the 'First Great Divergence': Roman and Qin-Han State Formation and Its Aftermath”. SSRN Working Paper Series: 11–23. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1096433. ISSN 1556-5068. 
• Sharman, J.C. (2019) Empires of the Weak: The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World Order Princeton, Princeton University Press

External links

• The Maddison-Project – Estimates of economic growth between 1 and 2010
• China and Europe, 1500–2000 and Beyond: What Is "Modern"? (course materials). Columbia University