Growth or Stagnation in Pre-industrial Britain? a Revealed Income Growth Approach

In recent years two ambitious historical national account reconstructions of British economic development over the very long run have been published (Broadberry et als 2015, Clark 2010). Broadberry et als estimates national income and per capita income growth using output data while Clark is using income data, that is wage, capital income and land rent data. In principle results from these reconstructions should be similar but, helas, they differ profoundly. Clark suggests that per capita income is stationary before the 19 century but Broadberry finds a modest but positive long run growth, which accelerates in the mid 17 century.