Regional share of world economy over last five centuries

Share of the total world economy represented by different regions. W Eur, NA, AusNZ= Western Europe, North Americam, Australia and New Zeland. E Eur + FSU = Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Union. Data from Angus Maddison 2005 Measuring and Interpreting World Economic Performance 1500-2001. Review of Income and Wealth, 51:1-35.

Graph shows how the recent centrality of Western Europe and North America to the world economy appears to represent a temporary break in Asian centrality in the world economy. The centrality’s of the West in the world economy began in about 1850 and appears likely to end soon.

Andre Gunder Frank, who died in early 2005, discussed this idea in his 1998 book Re:Orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age.