Mathematical Analysis of the Historical Economic Growth

TL;DR

This paper analyzes historical economic growth data, revealing a natural tendency towards hyperbolic growth patterns and challenging the idea of sudden takeoffs from stagnation, thus offering new insights into economic development mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides a mathematical analysis showing that historical economic growth follows hyperbolic distributions and finds no evidence for abrupt growth takeoffs.

Findings

Economic growth follows hyperbolic patterns

No evidence of sudden growth takeoffs

Parameters of hyperbolic distributions identified

Abstract

Data describing historical economic growth are analysed. Included in the analysis is the world and regional economic growth. The analysis demonstrates that historical economic growth had a natural tendency to follow hyperbolic distributions. Parameters describing hyperbolic distributions have been determined. A search for takeoffs from stagnation to growth produced negative results. This analysis throws a new light on the interpretation of the mechanism of the historical economic growth and suggests new lines of research.