10 Introduction to Modern Economic Growth Western Offshoots log gdp per capita Western Europe Asia Africa Latin America 1800 1850 1900 year 1950 2000 Figure 1.11 The evolution of average GDP per capita in Western Offshoots, Western Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, 18202000 shock are among the major questions of macroeconomics While the Great Depression falls outside the scope of the current book, we will later discuss the relationship between economic crises and economic growth as well as potential sources of economic volatility A variety of other evidence suggest that differences in income per capita were even smaller once we go back further than 1820 Maddison also has estimates for average income per capita for the same groups of countries going back to 1000 AD or even earlier We extend Figure 1.11 using these data; the results are shown in Figure 1.12 While these numbers are based on scattered evidence and guesses, the general pattern is consistent with qualitative historical evidence and the fact that income per capita in any country cannot have been much less than $500 in terms of 2000 US dollars, since individuals could not survive with real incomes much less than this 17