China Great Divergence Restatement

Peter Solar highlights some shortcomings of our treatment of government
spending. However, correcting for these shortcomings using data rather than
assumptions confirms our principal findings. GDP per capita in the leading
region of China remained around the same level as in the leading region of Europe
until the 18th century before declining substantially during the
Qing dynasty. The Great Divergence thus began around 1700, earlier than
originally suggested by the California School, but later than implied by earlier
writers. The new data do not support Solar’s novel chronology with its Great
Crossing, Great Convergence and Greater Divergence.

彼得·索拉尔（Peter Solar）指出了我们在政府支出分析中存在的若干缺陷。但若采用数据而非假设对这些缺陷进行修正，则可验证我们的核心研究结论。直至18世纪，中国经济领先地区的人均GDP仍与欧洲经济领先地区维持在相近水平，随后在清代出现大幅下滑。因此，大分流（Great Divergence）这一现象始于1700年前后，早于加州学派（California School）最初提出的时间节点，但又晚于早期学者所暗示的时间。新的数据集并不支持索拉尔提出的包含大跨越（Great Crossing）、大趋同（Great Convergence）与更大分流（Greater Divergence）的全新时间线假说。