https://macropaperwarehouse.com/authors/paul-bouscasse/Paul BouscasseHugo -- gohugo.ioen-ushttps://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/when-did-growth-begin-new-estimates-of-productivity-growth-in-england-from-1250-to-1870/https://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/when-did-growth-begin-new-estimates-of-productivity-growth-in-england-from-1250-to-1870/<p><strong>Research Question.</strong> When did sustained productivity growth begin in England? This paper constructs new estimates of the evolution of productivity in England from 1250 to 1870, with the goal of both dating the onset of growth and using that dating to discriminate between competing theories of why growth began.</p> <p><strong>Methodological Innovation.</strong> The core challenge is that real wages over this period were heavily distorted by Malthusian population dynamics. Plague-induced population collapses (most dramatically the Black Death of 1348, which killed roughly 25% of England&rsquo;s population) drove enormous swings in real wages that reflect movements along a stable labor demand curve, not changes in productivity. A naive regression of wages on labor supply is therefore inconsistent, because in a Malthusian world productivity growth induces population growth, making labor supply endogenous to productivity.</p>