Weak data nullify bold claims about economic trends in Qing China

Abstract

Recent quantitative studies find steep reductions in Chinese per capita real GDP during 1700–1850, challenging long-standing views of eighteenth-century prosperity. While evidence surrounding likely consequences of deteriorating food availability remains inconclusive, examination of the grain output series proposed by Broadberry, Guan and Li reveals unrealistically tight error margins as a key driver of their results for the largest component of Qing-era GDP. Plausible revisions demonstrate that the underlying data easily accommodate stable or rising, as well as falling per capita grain supply, invalidating revisionist conclusions about GDP trends, Qing economic decline and the timing and extent of the Great Divergence.