Nick Szabo  🔑

One thing: if you want to argue innovation could have contributed to growth earlier, then look to agriculture. Employment in English agriculture fell from ~60% of total to ~40% in 1550-1750. But this was about practises: engrossment, crop rotation, turnips, clover, nitrogen, etc.

This applies to nw Europe, but there was also a great deal of population growth, which implies technological or institutional progress in agriculture, during 17th & 18th centuries, in much of East and South Asia not just in nw Europe. Common cause(s)?

I wouldn't think so. England's agri employment was around 45% in 1700, which is what eg Pakistan is today. That implies something divergent going on a long time ago

It's divergent insofar as productivity in nw Europe was growing along with population, but population was growing in many other parts of the world too. Even without productivity growing faster than Malthusian pressure that also implicates improvements & may have common cause(s).