Economic Growth Of The World
                     ECONOMIC GROWTH OF 
THE WORLD
Introduction
• Economic growth describes an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic 
goods and services that a society produces and consumes.
Source: ourworldindata.org
How Growth is Measured?
• Growth is often measured as an increase in household income or inflation-adjusted 
GDP, but it is important to keep in mind that this is not the definition of it just like 
life expectancy is a measure of population health, but certainly not the definition 
of population health.
Source: ourworldindata.org
Measure of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 
•  The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of an economy is a measure of total 
production. More precisely, it is the monetary value of all final goods and services 
produced within a country or region in a specific time period. 
Source: ourworldindata.org
The UK over the long run
• The UK is particularly interesting as it was the first economy that achieved 
sustained economic growth and thereby previously unimaginable prosperity for 
the majority of the population.
Source: ourworldindata.org
The economy before economic growth
• Before the modern era of economic growth the economy worked very differently. 
Not technological progress, but the size of the population determined the 
standards of living.
Source: ourworldindata.org
Technological change in the pre-growth 
economy
• Technological innovation that increases productivity is the key to increased 
prosperity. But there were technological breakthroughs before the 17th century. 
• Technological improvements lead to larger, but not richer populations. 
Source: ourworldindata.org
Incomes were not flat 
• Throughout history there were several episodes in which certain economies 
achieved economic growth, but in contrast to the sustained growth since the 
Industrial Revolution these episodes were all short-lived. 
Source: ourworldindata.org
Economic growth over the long run
• Data on economic growth is now routinely published by statistical offices, but 
researchers have had to reconstruct accounts of the economic productivity for the 
past.
Source: ourworldindata.org
GDP per capita over the long run
• The rise of global average incomes – global GDP per capita – shows that the world 
economy has moved from a zero-sum game to a positive-sum game. 
• This made it possible that when people in one place became richer, other people in 
other places could become richer at the same time.
Source: ourworldindata.org
Which countries achieved economic growth?
• Incomes did not grow everywhere in the world. If you look at the poorest countries 
in the world today you’ll see that these countries did not stand out back in 1950; 
their incomes were as low as the incomes of many other countries in the world.
• Norwegians are now on average more than 100-fold richer than people in Liberia, 
Burundi, and the Central African Republic.
Source: ourworldindata.org