Why Europe? on Comparative Long-Term Growth (Report‪)‬

1. Introduction In the second half of the 20th century the world was divided into three parts. The First World comprised industrialised Western Europe with its transatlantic offshoots in North America, Australia, and New Zealand with the later addition of Japan. The Second World was communist and tried to catch up with the West with dubitable success. And the remainder, the Third World, was less developed and remained poor enjoying only a tiny fraction of the Western standard of living. In East Asia the Second and the Third World overlapped.