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Convergence or Decline on Europe's Southeastern Periphery? Agriculture, Population, and GNP in Bulgaria, 1892–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2007

Martin Ivanov  and
Adam Tooze
Martin Ivanov
Affiliation:
Research Fellow; Academy of Science, Sofia; 3 Balsha Str.; Bl. 7, ap. 13; 1408 Sovia; Bulgaria E-mail: hadjimartin@abv.bg.
Adam Tooze
Affiliation:
Fellow, Jesus College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB5 8BL, United Kingdom. E-mail: JAT27@cam.ac.uk.
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Abstract

The literature currently offers no consistent narrative about economic development on Europe's southeastern periphery prior to 1945. Did per capita GNP in the Balkans converge with the rest of Europe? We present new GNP estimates for Bulgaria for 1892–1911 and link these with a new degree of precision to the data available for the 1920s. Our data reveal stagnation in per capita GNP from 1879 to the 1930s. But within agriculture we find evidence for a new phase of intensification from the 1920s onwards. The preconditions for growth, sometimes attributed to Communism, were in place well before 1945.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 67 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 672 - 703
Copyright
© 2007 The Economic History Association

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