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Chinese National Income, ca. 1661–1933
Author(s) -
Xu Yi,
Shi Zhihong,
Leeuwen Bas,
Ni Yuping,
Zhang Zipeng,
Ma Ye
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
australian economic history review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.493
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1467-8446
pISSN - 0004-8992
DOI - 10.1111/aehr.12127
Subject(s) - gross domestic product , per capita income , per capita , convergence (economics) , measures of national income and output , gross national income , china , economics , gross domestic income , divergence (linguistics) , development economics , product (mathematics) , demographic economics , period (music) , geography , socioeconomics , economic growth , demography , macroeconomics , gross income , public economics , population , sociology , mathematics , philosophy , linguistics , archaeology , acoustics , geometry , state income tax , physics , tax reform
In recent decades, national income has become increasingly important as a measure of a nation's economic health. In this study, we used a wide array of primary and secondary sources to arrive at values of the Chinese per capita gross domestic product during the period of 1661–1933. We found a persistent decline in the per capita gross domestic product between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, followed by a period of stagnation. This pattern, which shows up in many Asian countries, with the exception of Japan, provides a basis for improving our understanding of the patterns of global economic convergence and divergence.