Horsemen of the apocalypse: The Mongol Empire and the great divergence

Abstract

Why did the Industrial Revolution take place in Europe, but did not in India or China? This paper uses a novel dataset and builds a general model to study the economic transformations of the Late Middle Ages that led to the Industrial Revolution and the Great Divergence. Through modern econometric techniques, I exploit the Mongol Invasions of the 13th century to account for the role of violence, commerce, and technology in the structural transformations of Eurasia from the Middle Ages into the Modern Era. I show theoretically and verify empirically how the large-scale violence and new trade opportunities brought by the Mongol Empire allowed Western Europe to catch up and surpass the levels of income and technical capacity of the great Asian civilizations. Furthermore, I found that the impact of the Mongol Conquests persisted and deepened at least into the 19th century. The Mongol Invasions of the 13th century can be regarded as a fundamental cause of the Rise of Europe and the Decline of Asia. Moreover, the rise and fall of the Mongol Empire is a key event in understanding the transition from a Malthusian world into a world of sustained economic growth and inter-regional inequality.