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OTTOMAN GDP AND ITS GROWTH RELATIVE TO WESTERN EUROPE:

A preliminary Estimate
Sharon Ouziely and Yakir Plessner
Department of Agricultural Economics and Management
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

1. The Existing State of Affairs

Unlike the state of information concerning historical GDP rates in Western Europe,
East Asia and other parts of the world, to date, there do not exist estimates of
historical GDP rates in the Ottoman Empire (henceforth the Empire). Information
available on the economy in the Empire does not provide a sufficient basis for
applying the methods used by Angus Maddison for Western Europe and elsewhere.
The earliest estimate of GDP in the Empire is for 1913 (Maddison, 1995). This lone
number will serve here as the basis for estimating a range of per-capita GDP in the
Empire for 1460, and hence an estimate for the average annual growth rate between
1460 and 1913.

2. GDP estimate – 1913 data.

Maddison's historic GDP estimates in Western Europe are in terms of 1990 PPP
dollars. Exchange rates in PPP terms are derived from the Penn World Tables.
The basic data are as follows:
Per capita GDP in the Ottoman Empire in 1913, in 1990 PPP dollars: $979.
Per capita GDP in the US in 1913, in 1990 PPP dollars: $5,307.
Per capita GDP in the US in 1913, in nominal (1913) dollars: $403.
Hence: $1 nominal in 1913=5,307/403=$13.169 in 1990 PPP dollars.
Hence: Ottoman GDP in 1913 in 1913 nominal dollars=979/13.169=$74.34.
The next item provides the key datum for the process of estimating the historic
GDP in the Empire, because it provides an alternative method to the one used by
Maddison.:
The price of London silver in 1913 was $0.584/oz., i.e. per 28.35grams.
3. GDP estimate – 1460 data.
According to (Pamuk, 2000a, p. 241) the quantity of money in circulation in the
Ottoman Empire in 1460 was in a range equivalent to 1,000-1,500 tons of silver. He
also reports a population of 10m at that point. His assessment of the velocity of
circulation is between 2 and 5. But elsewhere in his book (p. 57), he reports that the
Janissaries were paid 4 times a year. Since there is no reason to suppose that other
workers received wage payments at a different frequency, a velocity of circulation
of 4 is most likely. This implies income at 4,000-6,000 tons of silver, or an average
of 400-600 grams of silver per capita.
It follows, that per capita income in 1460, in nominal 1913 dollars was in the range
of
(400/28.35)*0.584=$8.24 to (600/28.35)*0.584= $12.36.
The next step must be to find out what the purchasing power of silver in the Empire
was in 1460 relative to 1913. There is no direct information about that. However,
(Pamuk, 2000a, Table 3.1, p. 46) reports that the rate of exchange between silver
and gold did not change between 1460 and 1470. And for 1469, and hence for
1460, we do have information about the purchasing power of silver: it was 2.97
times the purchasing power of silver in 1913 (Pamuk, 2000b).

4. The estimate of GDP in the Empire in 1460..

From the data in Section 3 it follows that per capita income in 1460 in nominal
dollars of 1913 was in the range
$8.24*2.97=$24.47 to $12.36*2.97=$36.71.
Conversion of these sums to 1990 PPP dollars yields a range of
$24.47*13.169=$322.25 to $36.71*13.169=$483.43.
Or, in round numbers, $322 to $483.
In what follows, though, it will be the upper limit that will be used. There are at
least two reasons for this. The first is that (Pamuk, 2000a, p. 241) reports that the
Janissaries were paid 1,000 grams silver per year, and that this was substantially
higher than the average wage. If we take the average to be 600 grams, the
Janissaries were still earning two thirds more than the average, and it stands to
reason that this fits the description "substantially more". The second reason is that

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 in a predominantly rural society, a significant proportion of GDP does not pass
through the market and so is not traded for money.

5. Growth estimate.
The average growth rate can now be computed on the basis of GDP's per capita for
1460 and 1913. The estimate:
g=(979/483)1/453-1=0.00156, or 0.156% per year.

6. Comparison of growth to growth in Western Europe.

The comparison is facilitated by (Maddison, 2001). His GDP data are for 1500,
1600, 1700, 1820, 1870 and 1913 AD. For the comparison, Ottoman GDP is
brought forward to 1500, using the average growth rate. The result is $514 in 1990
PPP dollars per capita.
Fig. 1 describes the growth trajectories in Western Europe and the Empire. The
figure yields two observations. The first is that already in 1500 GDP in the Empire
is less than GDP in Western Europe (the ratio is about two thirds). It is important to
point out that at this stage the Empire comprised Anatolia, most of the Balkans, and
the southern Caucasus. That is, the Arab Middle East was not yet under Ottoman
rule. This means that in a considerable part of the Empire the population is neither

Fig. 1. Per‐capita GDP in 1990 PPP dollars,  Western Europe and the Ottoman 
Empire
3,800
3,600
3,400
3,200
3,000
2,800
2,600
2,400
2,200 Western Europe
2,000
1,800
1,600
1,400
1,200
1,000
800
Ottoman Empire
600
400
200
0
1500 1600 1700 1820 1870 1913

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 Arab nor Muslim. Hence, the figure doesn't really pertain to the question of why the
present-day Middle East is so far behind economically.
The second observation that emerges is that the figure seems to corroborate the
paradigm of the "Great Divergence": it looks like the Industrial Revolution is what
started Western Europe on a growth trajectory steeper than the trajectory in the
Empire. However, both the starting point of the trajectory and the growth rate for
Western Europe as a whole, mask important differences between countries within
Western Europe. For example, Finland had in 1500 a per-capita GDP that was 12%
lower than GDP in the Empire.
Table 1 clarifies this point. It shows that until late in the 19th century, France fell
steadily behind the UK, while the Ottoman Empire held steady relative to France
until France's growth began to accelerate due to the Industrial revolution. Put

Table 1. Relative GDP's Per-Capita, %

Year GDP in France Relative to GDP in the Ottoman Empire
GDP in the UK Relative to GDP in France
1500 101.8 70.7
1600 86.3 71.4
1700 78.9 71.2
1820 72.1 68.8
1870 58.8 48.8
1913 70.8 28.1

differently, for about 300 years the UK was pulling away from France as it did from
the Ottoman Empire.
This suggests, that part of the economic laggardness of the Muslim Middle East
could be explained by finding out which sorts of economic arrangements persisted
both in France and in the Empire, but not in the UK, and then later on were still
maintained in the Empire, but not in France. This is the closest one can come to
what in the natural sciences is a controlled experiment.

References
1. Angus Maddison (1995), Monitoring the World Economy, 1820-1992, OECD
Development Center Studies, Paris.
2. Angus Maddison (2001), The World Economy: A Milennial Perspective, Paris,
OECD.
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3. Sevket Pamuk (2000a), A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire, Cambridge,
UK, Cambridge University Press.
4. Sevket Pamuk (2000b), 500 Years of Prices and Wages in Istanbul and Other
Cities 1469-1998, Ankara, State Institute of Statistics, Prime Ministry, Republic
Of Turkey.
5. Alan Heston, Robert Summers and Bettina Aten, Penn World TablesMark 6.3,
NBER, http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/php_site/pwt_index.php.
6. London Silver Prices, http://66.38.218.33/scripts/hist_charts/yearly_graphs.plx