China, Europe, and the Great Divergence: A Restatement

Peter Solar highlights some shortcomings of our treatment of government spending. However, correcting for these shortcomings using data rather than assumptions confirms our principal findings. GDP per capita in the leading region of China remained around the same level as in the leading region of Europe until the eighteenth century before declining substantially during the Qing dynasty. The Great Divergence thus began around 1700, earlier than originally suggested by the California School, but later than implied by earlier writers. The new data do not support Solar’s novel chronology with its Great Crossing, Great Convergence and Greater Divergence.