The impact of economic growth revisited: Comparing rural market and subaltern economies in the premodern Low Countries (1650-1800)

This project has the ambition to test if economic growth had a positive influence on welfare levels in the past. Growth used to be seen as a precondition for welfare. Nevertheless, by using real wages and GDP figures, indicators that measure commercial transactions, societies that are highly commercialised and experienced economic growth will always appear more affluent. This project proposes a new multidimensional welfare index, to grasp all essential dimensions of welfare of different types of historical societies. This project will be the first to systematically compare the welfare levels of distinct types of societies that represent the two sides of the growth spectre that coexisted in the past: the Scheldt polder area and Campine area (Belgium). They will be analysed from a long-term perspective (1650- 1800), to test which type of society was able to sustain the highest levels of welfare.

Keywords:welfare, economic growth, subaltern economies, comparative approach, multidimensional index, commons

Disciplines:European history, Socio-economic history, Early modern history, Economic history