I don’t have numbers right now but I think the UK itself didn’t reach that growth rate until the 20th century. If there was a phase change it was presumably somewhere closer to 1700?
It gives 0.6% average growth from 1476 to 1781 and then 2% from 1781 to early 1900s. Though the rate isn’t very constant within either period, closer to 1% at 1781 itself and then hitting 3%+ later in the 20th century.
I’m not sure what the phase transition view is saying about these cases---0.6%/year is incredibly fast growth (that’s a ~100 year doubling time, contrasted with a >1000 year doubling time for other agricultural societies); has the phase transition happened or not by 1476? (You could attribute some to catch-up growth after the plague, but even peak to peak and completely ignoring the plague you have fast growth well before 1781.)
I’m not sure what the phase transition view is saying about these cases---0.6%/year is incredibly fast growth (that’s a ~100 year doubling time, contrasted with a >1000 year doubling time for other agricultural societies); has the phase transition happened or not by 1476? (You could attribute some to catch-up growth after the plague, but even peak to peak and completely ignoring the plague you have fast growth well before 1781.)
My guess would be sometime around the English Civil War. The phase transition definitely hadn’t happened by 1476 - I would put the date sometime in the first half of the 17th century for when it starts, and I think it ends roughly when the Napoleonic Wars are over.
That said, this data is less clear than I would have liked. The GDP per capita plot for the UK shows a very clear break with trend in the middle of the 17th century and this was one of the data points that had convinced me in the past that something discontinuous was going on, but actually this could be the Civil War messing up what otherwise would have been a smoother trend given that this uptick is not visible in the GDP plots.
Combined with the knowledge that the English Civil War happened around the time of the GDP per capita trend deviation, I agree that these plots are evidence against the phase transition model and in favor of a smoother (such as a hyperbolic) model.
Given all the evidence you’ve presented so far, I now think the picture is less clear than I’d previously thought it was.
Here’s a citation on britain GDP growth (but haven’t checked them for reasonableness), see figures 2 and 7: https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/21/2/141/3044162.
It gives 0.6% average growth from 1476 to 1781 and then 2% from 1781 to early 1900s. Though the rate isn’t very constant within either period, closer to 1% at 1781 itself and then hitting 3%+ later in the 20th century.
I’m not sure what the phase transition view is saying about these cases---0.6%/year is incredibly fast growth (that’s a ~100 year doubling time, contrasted with a >1000 year doubling time for other agricultural societies); has the phase transition happened or not by 1476? (You could attribute some to catch-up growth after the plague, but even peak to peak and completely ignoring the plague you have fast growth well before 1781.)
My guess would be sometime around the English Civil War. The phase transition definitely hadn’t happened by 1476 - I would put the date sometime in the first half of the 17th century for when it starts, and I think it ends roughly when the Napoleonic Wars are over.
That said, this data is less clear than I would have liked. The GDP per capita plot for the UK shows a very clear break with trend in the middle of the 17th century and this was one of the data points that had convinced me in the past that something discontinuous was going on, but actually this could be the Civil War messing up what otherwise would have been a smoother trend given that this uptick is not visible in the GDP plots.
Combined with the knowledge that the English Civil War happened around the time of the GDP per capita trend deviation, I agree that these plots are evidence against the phase transition model and in favor of a smoother (such as a hyperbolic) model.
Given all the evidence you’ve presented so far, I now think the picture is less clear than I’d previously thought it was.