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 living standards 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
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 living standards 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
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!