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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA AND EUROPE: RECIPROCAL COMPARISONS*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2015

Stephen Broadberry  and
Leigh Gardner
Stephen Broadberry
Affiliation:
Nuffield College, Oxford and CAGE
Leigh Gardner
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political ScienceStellenbosch University
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Abstract

Recent advances in historical national accounting have allowed for global comparisons of GDP per capita across space and time. Critics have argued that GDP per capita fails to capture adequately the multi-dimensional nature of welfare, and have developed alternative measures such as the human development index. Whilst recognising that these wider indicators provide an appropriate way of assessing levels of welfare, we argue that GDP per capita remains a more appropriate measure for assessing development potential, focussing on production possibilities and the sustainability of consumption. Twentieth-century Africa and pre-industrial Europe are used to show how such data can guide reciprocal comparisons to provide insights into the process of development on both continents.

Keywords

GDP per capitaHDIAfricaEuropereciprocal comparisonN01N0NN13N1N17PIB per cápitaIDHÁfricaEuropaComparación recíproca
Type
Articles/Artículos
Information
Revista de Historia Economica - Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 11 - 37
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Copyright
© Instituto Figuerola, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 2015 

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Footnotes

*

This paper was begun as part of the Collaborative Project HI-POD supported by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme for Research, Contract Number SSH7-CT-2008-225342. The authors are grateful to Johan Fourie, Leandro Prados de la Escosura, Mark Koyama, Carl-Johan Dalgaard and seminar/conference participants in Copenhagen, Durham, London, Stellenbosch and Washington for helpful comments and suggestions. The paper has benefited from the very helpful suggestions of the referees and editors of this journal, but all remaining errors are authors’ responsibility.

a

Nuffield College, Oxford OX1 1NF, UK. [email protected]

b

Department of Economic History, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK. [email protected]

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