Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- List of contributors
- 1 Postwar growth: an overview
- 2 Institutions and economic growth: Europe after World War II
- 3 The varieties of Eurosclerosis: the rise and decline of nations since 1982
- 4 Why the 1950s and not the 1920s? Olsonian and non-Olsonian interpretations of two decades of German economic history
- 5 Convergence, competitiveness and the exchange rate
- 6 British economic growth since 1945: relative economic decline … and renaissance?
- 7 Economic growth in postwar Belgium
- 8 France, 1945–92
- 9 Economic growth and the Swedish model
- 10 Characteristics of economic growth in the Netherlands during the postwar period
- 11 Portuguese postwar growth: a global approach
- 12 Growth and macroeconomic performance in Spain, 1939–93
- 13 Irish economic growth, 1945–88
- 14 Italy
- 15 West German growth and institutions, 1945–90
- 16 An exercise in futility: East German economic growth and decline, 1945–89
- 17 Postwar growth of the Danish economy
- 18 Reflections on the country studies
- Index
1 - Postwar growth: an overview
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- List of contributors
- 1 Postwar growth: an overview
- 2 Institutions and economic growth: Europe after World War II
- 3 The varieties of Eurosclerosis: the rise and decline of nations since 1982
- 4 Why the 1950s and not the 1920s? Olsonian and non-Olsonian interpretations of two decades of German economic history
- 5 Convergence, competitiveness and the exchange rate
- 6 British economic growth since 1945: relative economic decline … and renaissance?
- 7 Economic growth in postwar Belgium
- 8 France, 1945–92
- 9 Economic growth and the Swedish model
- 10 Characteristics of economic growth in the Netherlands during the postwar period
- 11 Portuguese postwar growth: a global approach
- 12 Growth and macroeconomic performance in Spain, 1939–93
- 13 Irish economic growth, 1945–88
- 14 Italy
- 15 West German growth and institutions, 1945–90
- 16 An exercise in futility: East German economic growth and decline, 1945–89
- 17 Postwar growth of the Danish economy
- 18 Reflections on the country studies
- Index
Summary
Introduction
One of the most difficult and intriguing tasks of a theory of economic growth is to combine both the disruptive and the integrative, the qualitatively changing and the quantitatively steady, aspects of the process.
(Kuznets, 1965: 23)We still refer to the past fifty years as the ‘postwar’: this is perhaps the best tribute to the fact that the ‘second Thirty Years War’ (1914–1945) marked a major watershed in the history of mankind. So much so that it proved to be a major intellectual watershed as well. In fact, until fairly recently, 1945 often marked the borderline of historical research, more recent decades being considered as the playing ground for journalists, political scientists and sociologists. Only the boldest, or most inconsiderate, scholars entered the field, and they did so at their own risk. The same can be said of economic historians: with few exceptions, they have been reluctant to apply the tools of their trade to the ‘postwar’ period, more often than not leaving it as the domain of applied economists. Things are changing, however, and the half century following the end of the Second World War is now increasingly seen as being ripe for historical investigation, much beyond the Marshall Plan years that have attracted much recent attention.
This chapter aims at reviewing the performance of the European economy since 1945 in a longer-run perspective, which sees the period from 1913 to 1973 as being an exceptional one in the history of ‘modern economic growth’, in that it departed from the secular trend first (1913–45) by under-and then (1945–73) by overperforming. In this chapter, the European economy is tentatively seen as an aggregate, at least in fieri.
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- Economic Growth in Europe since 1945 , pp. 1 - 37Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
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