And in every instance, they note, where a surge in agricultural productivity as a result of a clever new technology made one or two lucky generations thrive, population growth quickly restored everything back to a more miserly baseline. They have also noted the opposite effect when populations declined suddenly as a result of disease or war. Thus, for instance, once the initial shock caused by the huge numbers of deaths from the bubonic plague in Europe in the mid-fourteenth century died down, average material living standards and real wages improved considerably for a couple of generations,
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