by James Foreman-Peck and Peng Zhou (Cardiff University)
A Wedding at St George’s Church in London. Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-17/wedding-at-st-georges-church-in-london/8443430
A central question of economics is why some nations experienced economic growth and are now rich, when others have not and are poor. We go some way to answering this core question by estimating and testing a model of the English economy beginning four or five centuries before the first Industrial Revolution. Western Europe experienced the earliest modern economic growth and also showed a uniquely high female age at first marriage – around 25 – from at the latest the 15th century. Whereas real wages actually began a sustained rise during the first Industrial Revolution, without the contribution of late marriage, average living standards in England would not have risen by 1870.
We utilise long time series evidence, some dating back to 1300, and test the hypothesis that this West European…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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