Abstract

"British Economic Growth", 1270-1870 represents a major contribution to economic history. The book contains a very sophisticated reconstruction of British GDP from the output side for the period 1270- 1870. This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the book. In particular, we point to three possible areas of improvement of the estimates and we discuss the interpretive framework used by Broadberry et al. against the backdrop of recent research on the origins of the industrial revolution.