Recientemente
se han publicado trabajos sobre la contabilidad del crecimiento de la Pequeña y
la Gran Divergencia, respectivamente.
Alexandra M. de Pleijt y
Jan Luiten van Zanden prepararon Accounting for the ‘Little Divergence’ What drove
economic growth in preindustrial Europe, 1300-1800? En su resumen leemos:
"The Little Divergence is the process of differential economic growth
within Europe in the period between 1300 and 1800, during which the North Sea
Area developed into the most prosperous and dynamic part of the Continent. We
test various hypotheses about the causes of the Little Divergence, using new
data and focusing on rends in GDP per capita. The results are that
institutional changes (in particular the rise of active Parliaments), human
capital formation and structural change are the primary drivers of the growth
that occurred, which contrast sharply with previous findings by Robert Allen
(who however focused on real wages as dependent variable). We also test for the
role of religion (the spread of Protestantism): this has affected human capital
formation, but does not in itself have an impact on growth. Moreover, we find
an insignificant effect of the land-labour ratio, which shows the limitations
of the malthusian model for understanding the Little Divergence."
Por su parte, Stephen Broadberry escribió Accounting for the Great
Divergence, cuyo abstract resume “As a result of recent work on
historical national accounting, it is now possible to establish firmly the
timing of the Great Divergence of living standards between Europe and Asia.
There was a European Little Divergence as Britain and Holland overtook Italy
and Spain, and an Asian Little Divergence as Japan overtook China and India.
The Great Divergence occurred because Japan grew more slowly than Britain and
Holland, starting from a lower level. Key turning points are identified around
1348 and 1500, and an explanatory framework is developed that can explain these
divergences via the differential impact of shocks on differently structured
economies. The key shocks were the Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century
and the new trade routes which opened up from Europe to Asia and the Americas
at the end of the fifteenth century. The key structural factors were the type
of agriculture, the age of first marriage of females, the flexibility of labour
supply and the nature of state institutions.”
