Verdurian GDP

[dhok]

Insofar as it's possible to measure it for a country that's at 1750, what is the GDP of Verduria? Relative prosperity indexes are, well, relative.
(Actually, the real question is: how much is the per capita GDP, and how equal is the distribution of wealth?)

[zompist]

I don't think we know GDP for European countries in that era.

On a technological scale Erelae is closer to 1800... there was too much good stuff in the later 1700s I wanted. Verduria itself has a smaller population than Britain of the comparable era.

I don't have a metric for the distribution of wealth, but it should be comparable to Britain and France of the late 1700s. The actual middle class is still fairly small. On the other hand industrialization is only just getting started, so there isn't a huge poor urban underclass.

[Salmoneus]

Can't find many figures online, but the figures for 1700 and 1820 are easily available:

1700, GDP:
France: 19,536
UK: 10,709

1820, GDP:
France: 35,468
UK: 36,232


1700, GDP pc:
France: 910
UK: 1,250

1820, GDP pc:
France: 1,135
UK: 1,706


[An interest thing to note here is the Netherlands, which remained static in GDP and actually declined in GDPpc over the same period. Meanwhile: most countries doubled their GDP at this point, and the UK exceeded that. But note: the UK and the Netherlands both doubled between 1600 and 1700, while the big countries of the era (France and Germany, fi) only grew slowly. The transformation started early in the small countries, and in the UK continued and accelerated, while in the Netherlands it stalled - possibly due to population limits?]

[jal]

while in the Netherlands it stalled - possibly due to population limits?

The 17th century is the Dutch Golden Century. The decline after that was triggered by many factors. See Wikipedia for many of them.


JAL

[Aurora Rossa]

I thought it had something to do with the crash of the tulip market and its accompanying economic depression. Or was that the previous century?

[jal]

I thought it had something to do with the crash of the tulip market and its accompanying economic depression. Or was that the previous century?

No, that's a common misunderstanding. See also Wikipedia for more details :). Basically, the whole tulip craze was a relative short period , and not many people lost much money over it. The Tulip craze was in the midst of the Golden Century (around 1635), so the economy was hardly affected.

As end of the Golden Century (which was more like a 70-year period), or start of its decline, the Rampjaar ("disaster year") of 1672 is usually taken, when a bunch of nasty, jealous foreign countries (like, England, France, and parts of Germany) attacked the Netherlands. Although we finally won (admittedly with the help of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain), and Dutch cityholder Willem III became king of England, the Dutch were no longer in the lead (unsuprisingly for such a small country).


JAL

[So Haleza Grise]

I thought it had something to do with the crash of the tulip market and its accompanying economic depression. Or was that the previous century?

No, that's a common misunderstanding. See also Wikipedia for more details . Basically, the whole tulip craze was a relative short period , and not many people lost much money over it. The Tulip craze was in the midst of the Golden Century (around 1635), so the economy was hardly affected.

As end of the Golden Century (which was more like a 70-year period), or start of its decline, the Rampjaar ("disaster year") of 1672 is usually taken, when a bunch of nasty, jealous foreign countries (like, England, France, and parts of Germany) attacked the Netherlands. Although we finally won (admittedly with the help of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain), and Dutch cityholder Willem III became king of England, the Dutch were no longer in the lead (unsuprisingly for such a small country).


JAL

From what I've read, William's accesion to the English throne was, long-term, a disaster for the Dutch. Yes, it ended the Anglo-Dutch wars, but financing the invasion (William's fleet was much bigger than the Spanish Armada, and his armies were largely mercenaries) was very costly to the Dutch grandees who lent him the money. In fact, the financial centre of gravity went across the Channel with William, and London very quickly eclipsed Amsterdam as a financial centre, from then until the present day.

Moreover, the Dutch Republic was largely living beyond its means as a global power. When the English and other states started building large , specialised professional navies (the Dutch relied on dual purpose merchant-vessel/warships), without the enormous financial muscle that their money market previously had, the Dutch were a small state that could not keep up, particularly when, unlike the English, they lived in constant threat of invasion from neighboring states.