Thanks, the paper was great! There's a Crafts and Mills paper (https://academic.oup.com/ej/article-abstract/132/645/1994/6381686) that shows that in 18th century Britain a 1% increase in population reduced real wages by 4%; I suspect that this element was fairly limited by the late 19th century in Britain, as the UK was a net natural resource exporter and even the increase in food imports would only have been 7% of Europe's food production. This might somewhat suppress population growth earlier in the period though
France had much lower net emigration but declined in power more steeply. The problem with the British Empire was that productivity and military capacity was very low in non-settler territories. In the Great War, the home islands contributed about 6 million with the White Dominions adding about a million. 'Coloured troops' were only about 1.5 million and of those only about 300,000 were high quality. In the Second War, there was greater 'coloured' participation but the fact is the Indian army didn't stand a chance against the Japanese without UK help. However, even then, it was US air support which was crucial. Interestingly, the Japs raised productivity a lot in their colonies (Taiwan & Korea) because they were ruthless. The Brits were nice guys. They ruled India the way the Indians wanted. Sadly, this was also a way which made the sub-continent less able to feed or defend itself or protect minorities.
It must be said, the UK was quite socially divided for a period of time. The 'Class War' may have been polite and courteous but it did turn the country into what Sir John Hicks called a semi-centralized socialist economy where the rate of profit was regulated by politicians. Indeed, this was the reason UK had net emigration till the mid Nineties.
France had the fertility transition much earlier than the UK, so it didn't have the large population which could have either left or stayed - see https://worksinprogress.co/issue/frances-baby-bust/ for a more detailed discussion
But the Commonwealth also allowed Britain to have more immigration than its European peers (e.g., Windrush). It might be hard to get one without the other, but the net effect might be interesting? I think Germany had, e.g., even larger emigration to the US than the UK (without Ireland) (see e.g. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/British_America), and a late demographic transition without sizeable immigration until the 1950s, so there a counterfactual analysis might also be interesting.
Yes, but this migration came later - it was quite minimal during the 19th century, and much of the growth here comes from ommitting early migration that can then contribute to population growth over time, especially as TFR was then higher. Note that the counterfactual above essentially sets net migration to zero for much of the period, so this effect would be excluded. Running the same analysis on Germany would be very interesting, but I suspect getting pre-1870 migration data that was sufficiently comprehensive would be very hard and ommitting it would avoid much of the potential population growth, although pre-1870 Germany was also much more plausibly close to the Malthusian ceiling than the UK was then.
“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion…” Genesis 1:28 (note this would of course only be gramatically correct here from 1867-1901)
Honestly, it's mostly the planning rules and some really shoddy governments since 2008. Don't overthink it. Interesting, if slightly barking, counterfactual though. Does bring home how much emigration was/is part of British culture for a long time.
Table of UK GDP as a fraction of global by year. Although post-2007 UK GDP has declined as a share of the global total (factor multiple 0.73), the UK was already by 2007 irrelevant relative to 1850 and 1900 (with these figures not including the also very substantive economies of the other parts of the British Empire in earlier years), so the key explanatory factor has to be earlier
| Year | UK GDP (2011-int\$) | World GDP (2011-int\$) | UK share of world GDP |
Some interesting ideas, is depopulation really the strongest causal factor here? Would industrial capacity, technology, and innovation all have increased without so much migration?
Industrial capacity is mostly capital accumulation, and I don't think there's a strong reason to expect per capita saving to have varied that much; innovation/technology is pretty well diffused globally (see e.g. https://cepr.org/publications/dp18621 for implicit evidence countries mostly choose their fraction of frontier GDP per capita with policy not their absolute level, at least for frontier economies), so although overall innovation might have changed this would not much affect the UK's relative standing in the world relative to it remaining constant. I give some evidence in the defence footnote overall innovation might have been lower in this counterfactual, which would make the welfare effect more negative though
This counterfactual would represent population growth for the UK of about 1.5%/annum since 1815 (rather than the historical level of 0.9%/annum); averaged US population growth over the same period was about 1.9%, or Brazil about 2.0%, so it seems likely the counterfactual levels of population growth would have been viable historically
You might want to take a look at https://www.nber.org/papers/w33542
Thanks, the paper was great! There's a Crafts and Mills paper (https://academic.oup.com/ej/article-abstract/132/645/1994/6381686) that shows that in 18th century Britain a 1% increase in population reduced real wages by 4%; I suspect that this element was fairly limited by the late 19th century in Britain, as the UK was a net natural resource exporter and even the increase in food imports would only have been 7% of Europe's food production. This might somewhat suppress population growth earlier in the period though
Thanks for pointing out that paper.
France had much lower net emigration but declined in power more steeply. The problem with the British Empire was that productivity and military capacity was very low in non-settler territories. In the Great War, the home islands contributed about 6 million with the White Dominions adding about a million. 'Coloured troops' were only about 1.5 million and of those only about 300,000 were high quality. In the Second War, there was greater 'coloured' participation but the fact is the Indian army didn't stand a chance against the Japanese without UK help. However, even then, it was US air support which was crucial. Interestingly, the Japs raised productivity a lot in their colonies (Taiwan & Korea) because they were ruthless. The Brits were nice guys. They ruled India the way the Indians wanted. Sadly, this was also a way which made the sub-continent less able to feed or defend itself or protect minorities.
It must be said, the UK was quite socially divided for a period of time. The 'Class War' may have been polite and courteous but it did turn the country into what Sir John Hicks called a semi-centralized socialist economy where the rate of profit was regulated by politicians. Indeed, this was the reason UK had net emigration till the mid Nineties.
France had the fertility transition much earlier than the UK, so it didn't have the large population which could have either left or stayed - see https://worksinprogress.co/issue/frances-baby-bust/ for a more detailed discussion
But the Commonwealth also allowed Britain to have more immigration than its European peers (e.g., Windrush). It might be hard to get one without the other, but the net effect might be interesting? I think Germany had, e.g., even larger emigration to the US than the UK (without Ireland) (see e.g. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/British_America), and a late demographic transition without sizeable immigration until the 1950s, so there a counterfactual analysis might also be interesting.
Yes, but this migration came later - it was quite minimal during the 19th century, and much of the growth here comes from ommitting early migration that can then contribute to population growth over time, especially as TFR was then higher. Note that the counterfactual above essentially sets net migration to zero for much of the period, so this effect would be excluded. Running the same analysis on Germany would be very interesting, but I suspect getting pre-1870 migration data that was sufficiently comprehensive would be very hard and ommitting it would avoid much of the potential population growth, although pre-1870 Germany was also much more plausibly close to the Malthusian ceiling than the UK was then.
"In the multitude of people is the king's glory;
But in the want of people is the destruction of the prince."
— Solomon
“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion…” Genesis 1:28 (note this would of course only be gramatically correct here from 1867-1901)
Honestly, it's mostly the planning rules and some really shoddy governments since 2008. Don't overthink it. Interesting, if slightly barking, counterfactual though. Does bring home how much emigration was/is part of British culture for a long time.
Table of UK GDP as a fraction of global by year. Although post-2007 UK GDP has declined as a share of the global total (factor multiple 0.73), the UK was already by 2007 irrelevant relative to 1850 and 1900 (with these figures not including the also very substantive economies of the other parts of the British Empire in earlier years), so the key explanatory factor has to be earlier
| Year | UK GDP (2011-int\$) | World GDP (2011-int\$) | UK share of world GDP |
| -------: | ------------------: | ---------------------: | --------------------: |
| **1850** | **\$0.16 T** | **\$1.77 T** | **9.3%** |
| **1900** | **\$0.31 T** | **\$3.45 T** | **9.1%** |
| **2007** | **\$3.01 T** | **\$94.7 T** | **3.18%** |
| **2022** | **\$3.28 T** | **\$141.5 T** | **2.32%** |
Some interesting ideas, is depopulation really the strongest causal factor here? Would industrial capacity, technology, and innovation all have increased without so much migration?
Industrial capacity is mostly capital accumulation, and I don't think there's a strong reason to expect per capita saving to have varied that much; innovation/technology is pretty well diffused globally (see e.g. https://cepr.org/publications/dp18621 for implicit evidence countries mostly choose their fraction of frontier GDP per capita with policy not their absolute level, at least for frontier economies), so although overall innovation might have changed this would not much affect the UK's relative standing in the world relative to it remaining constant. I give some evidence in the defence footnote overall innovation might have been lower in this counterfactual, which would make the welfare effect more negative though
Interesting
Interesting exercise! I find it hard to assess this without comparisons to other countries though! 200mln is really high!
This counterfactual would represent population growth for the UK of about 1.5%/annum since 1815 (rather than the historical level of 0.9%/annum); averaged US population growth over the same period was about 1.9%, or Brazil about 2.0%, so it seems likely the counterfactual levels of population growth would have been viable historically
Hmm, a quick chat with Gemini gave me these numbers:
Netherlands: 1.05%
Germany: 0.66%
France: 0.39%
I suppose all of those had significant migration towards the US though (not sure about France?), so your argument could still stand.
Also, these differences are really big! 0.39% for France especially!