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"would save the economy about £1 million a year (approximately £20–30 million in today's money)" Making the (I'm guessing safe) assumption that the UK Rhubarb

"would save the economy about £1 million a year (approximately £20–30 million in today's money)" Making the (I'm guessing safe) assumption that the UK Rhubarb industry is worth more than that. I wonder if this is an indication of just how much the economy has grown that that now seems like such a small sum (the £20-£30 million figure). Or if it's an example of the value of something increasing despite it becoming 'free'. Rhubarb is effectively now in the public domain, and it seems crazy (to me at least) that someone would try to maintain a monopoly on the plant. Although half way through writing this I remembered Monsanto...

ahi 8y ago
Over the course of 250 years I think applying a CPI conversion is far too simple to capture all of the qualitative changes in a political economy. That said, this list estimates 40x increase in the size of the UK economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_%28PPP%29#1750%E2%80%931990_(Bairoch) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_%2... A billion pound savings isn't anything to sneeze at in a niche luxury good.
- benj111 8y ago
  Agreed, it isn't clear to me what a 'good' conversion would be though. I suppose you could compare to an average wage or something, but then that doesn't capture subsistence farmers, or that there wasn't really a middle class then, or that on some measures a poor person today, is better off than a king from the 18th century. On top of that, the nature of the thing we are measuring has changed. Today it's a fruit, 250 years ago it's seeds and root were medicinal. All that said I'm struggling to work out where you got the billion £ figure from, or the 40x increase. The first 2 tables seem to suggest growth on the order of 100-150 fold, which would suggest £100 millions, rather than a billion, or am I misunderstanding something?
  - ahi 8y ago
    I was looking at 1820-2008 in Maddison which gives us the 40x increase. Both those numbers are in 1990 dollars, so using your estimate of 20 million after inflation 20/36,232 ~= 1000/1,446,959 ignoring all the confounding coffee stains on the back of the napkin.

ahi 8y ago

Over the course of 250 years I think applying a CPI conversion is far too simple to capture all of the qualitative changes in a political economy. That said, this list estimates 40x increase in the size of the UK economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_%28PPP%29#1750%E2%80%931990_(Bairoch) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_%2... A billion pound savings isn't anything to sneeze at in a niche luxury good.

benj111 8y ago
Agreed, it isn't clear to me what a 'good' conversion would be though. I suppose you could compare to an average wage or something, but then that doesn't capture subsistence farmers, or that there wasn't really a middle class then, or that on some measures a poor person today, is better off than a king from the 18th century. On top of that, the nature of the thing we are measuring has changed. Today it's a fruit, 250 years ago it's seeds and root were medicinal. All that said I'm struggling to work out where you got the billion £ figure from, or the 40x increase. The first 2 tables seem to suggest growth on the order of 100-150 fold, which would suggest £100 millions, rather than a billion, or am I misunderstanding something?
- ahi 8y ago
  I was looking at 1820-2008 in Maddison which gives us the 40x increase. Both those numbers are in 1990 dollars, so using your estimate of 20 million after inflation 20/36,232 ~= 1000/1,446,959 ignoring all the confounding coffee stains on the back of the napkin.