Economic Shrinking

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) John Joseph Wallis, University of Maryland College Park; Stephen Broadberry, Oxford University

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
01_buildpanel_archigos.do text/plain 6 KB 02/04/2025 11:43:AM
02_clean_civil_war_data.do text/plain 1.5 KB 02/03/2025 11:44:AM
03_clean_constitution_data.do text/plain 1.4 KB 02/03/2025 11:56:AM
04_clean_coup_data.do text/plain 1.4 KB 02/14/2025 11:02:AM
05_tables_1_and_2.do text/plain 3.4 KB 02/02/2025 12:25:PM
Table 10. Replication for Archigos data.xlsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet 440.5 KB 02/03/2025 12:04:PM
Table 2 & Appendix 1 Maddison Database Calculations (Growth rates of averages).xlsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet 391.2 KB 02/14/2025 10:35:AM
Table 5 Growing & Shrinking by Sector.xlsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet 209.1 KB 02/14/2025 11:18:AM
Table1.Replication.xlsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet 3.5 MB 02/14/2025 10:52:AM
Tables 3 & 4 Long Run Dataset Calculations.xlsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet 216.6 KB 02/01/2025 09:02:AM

Project Citation: 

Wallis, John Joseph, and Broadberry, Stephen. Economic Shrinking. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-02-14. https://doi.org/10.3886/E219484V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary
  This paper examines the role of economic shrinking in the process of long term economic growth over the last millennia, the last two centuries, and the last 70 years. The paper's main conclusion is that economic shrinking, both the rate at which economies shrink when they shrink and the frequency that they shrink (i.e., real per capita GDP declines) is a more important determinant of economic growth over the long term than the rate of growth when economies grow.  In fact, economies in the developed world actually grow more slowly when they grow than poorer economies.
Several possible reasons for the decline in shrinking and the associated increase in economic stability are considered and found wanting as explanations: structural change, demography, technological change, and stabilization policy.  The paper concludes that the ultimate source of the reduction in shrinking is institutions.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms Global
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage Whole world
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 1348 – 2015
Collection Date(s):  View help for Collection Date(s) 2016 – 2024


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V1 [2025-02-14]

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