The Cliometrics of French Retardation
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Bears weight explaioning decline from cultural and political grandeur Louis XIV to Vichy humiliation – 1820 world’s largest economy, 4^th in 1913

Early 20^th century statistics damming = heightened Great Dperession – had France changed since 1880s?

Late 17^th to 20^th century relative epr capita income gap probably constant = explanations poor war performance explain3ed with comparisons to British economy – Wars oF Austrian Succession, Seveen Yearsd and Napoleonic Wars

Start Theorty – 1870 – 1900French GSP 74 of British, 67 American, 118 Germany – 1913 59, 23, 61 – France probably gaining in per capita terms French industrial performance during the WW1 belies all charges of backwardness – despite loss important industrial region – supply soldiers effectively as Germany. See economic backwardness artefact of non-economic concerns – declining role of France in world politics BUT per capita income always less than Britain

Economic Crisis of the 18^th Century – Pre-Revolutionary Debate

Labrousse – smoothed series of prices and wages traced out secular decline in real wages- scientifically measures increasing distress cause social revolution – Growth induced redistribution income from from workers and peasants to capitalists and landlords – imiseration not reversed by arrest expansion as capitalists compensate fall in the rate of profit by increasing the rate of exploitation of the workers – actual event precipitated by long festering agricultural crisis – harvest shortfalls displacement to food stuffs of an already weakened effective demand for manufactures

Merged with new population statistics  -18^th century economy hostage to law of diminishing returns – fall in real wages positive that pre Revolutionary economy blocked

Other Notes in this Category

1. Introduction
2. Migration and Agricultural Markets
3. paradox of pre-Revolutionary productivity
4. Peasant Farming and Agric. Backwardness
5. Persistence of the open-fields
6. Retardation in the age of Industry
7. Structural Hypotheses
8. The Cliometrics of French Retardation

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