ABSTRACT
The measurement of economic growth everywhere involves a degree of approximation. One may take the first half of the eighteenth century to illustrate some of these points such as the value of the questions raised by considering economic growth, the difficulties of empirical verification and the complexity of the factors involved. The choice of period is largely an arbitrary one, determined by the existence of statistical evidence; and but for this, 1670 or 1680 might be a far more appropriate starting point. One of the major reasons for the continued growth of agricultural productivity in parts of southern England was the existence of an overseas market for grain. Between 1700 and 1760 the amounts exported rather more than doubled, and England became, for a time, the major surplus area in north-west Europe. In the century after the Restoration there was a rise of internal demand which permanently affected the level of expectation of most classes in English society.
