This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, May 27th, 2019.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Wealth Explosion, the new book by Stephen Davies details many of the theories that try

to explain why the world began to develop so rapidly two and a half centuries ago.

More importantly, he details cases where a wealth explosion began, but stopped.

He argues these historical cases and the very nature and

causes of wealth expansion have relevance for policy today.

The story of the 20th century and continuing into the 21st century that is

continues to be so unsung is the dramatic and sustained decline in the grinding poverty that people face around the world

both in absolute numbers and in percentage terms so that's a real decline it's not

just we're slowing the rate of growth of humans who have to live in this grinding poverty.

And that's because of the hockey stick, our sustained technological development and innovation that has allowed so many people

over time to be lifted out of poverty and to live fuller lives. And one of the questions that you raise in your book

because there was this moment in time and I want you to describe that moment in time

and what happened but the fact that there were these periods that seem to have gotten

started of this rapid innovation, this rapid increase in general wealth that's being

relatively more widely spread is that they stopped.

Yes. So what was the change that we saw about 250 years ago that has since dramatically changed the world.

Well, the way to understand what happened 200 years ago in a way is to think about, well, why

had this not happened before and as you say

there had been several episodes in the past where innovation had begun to get going

you began to get quite rapid economic growth you began to get a lot of intellectual, cultural dynamism as well as economic

...