Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History

by Angus Maddison

This book seeks to identify the forces which explain how and why some parts of the world have grown rich and others have lagged behind. Encompassing 2000 years of history, Part 1 begins with the Roman Empire and explores the key factors that have influenced economic development in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. Part 2 covers the development of macroeconomic tools of analysis from the 17th century to the present. Part 3 looks to the future and considers what the shape of the world economy might be in 2030. Combining both the close quantitative analysis with a more qualitative approach that takes into account the complexity of the forces at work, Contours of the World Economy provides students with a totally fascinating overview of world economic history.

Genres: Economics, History, Nonfiction, Academic, Money, Essays, The World

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Tomáš Richter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The style is quite dry and some of the presentation choices can be argued with. But the information this contains is valuable.

[Srinivas Nidugondi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Angus Maddison gives a fantastic perspective of how the World economy has progressed over the past 2 odd thousand years. It takes some research to have written such a book.

For anyone who wants to know how the World has evolved this could be a good starting point.

However there are two areas where I felt the author could have done a better job

1. In the context of India – probably I understand pretty OK – I was saddened to see the history seems to have started and stopped with the Mughals and the British; India has much more to offer and quite old that the perspective was missed out on. Also, mentioning how India in all probability could have been worse off had the British not invaded is a bit disappointing

2. The macro-economic section while interesting I thought could have been avoided as it did not fit in well

[Richard Marney · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is clearly a well-read and insightful economic historian. The book’s ambitious objective and laborious, academic writing style combine for a fairly arid, at times, superficial presentation, however. Overall, more of a reference text.

[Rick Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Reference work for metrics in Economy.

I am quite pleased with his work especially helps me to think about markets.

His Chapter on India is quite lucid, the insights of Mughal Empire -- I wonder, how did the Mughals manage?

In my next reading, I plan to read in depth of the Mughal Empire, how they managed? Think this, 25% of World's GDP was from India in 1600, so I assume they did well at that time. The Dutch VOC, English EIC were early corporations, both became bankrupt due to corruption.

I wonder about abstract social-structure in India?
It did change over time from Mughal Era, yet remants of Caste-system remains. Take Arunthathiyar community, what kind of jobs are they taking? Not much has changed, structurally.

In terms of the productive capacity of India.
I am not sure if it is highly productive, large sectors are not productive enough. This is key for economic growth.

Agriculture is inefficient, comparing global standards.
Manufacturing sector is small and getting smaller, so where would folks who are former-farmers go for work?
Service sector is productive, and it creates bulk of middle-upper-middle class of India.

The Urban Indians are busy in malls, taking vacations, and movie-theatres, consuming their new-found wealth.

I think, many Indian-policy makers are not working towards no.1 Priority. Employing their youth and people at large, as it would bring tax revenues and increase local economy.

For unemployment problem of India, I can think of one solution:
For large scale employment, one could connect the Indian-job-seeker to entire global market using a SaaS software, making sure they get an opportunity, Why nobody thinks this way?