The evidence presented in this study rejects a Kondratieff wave phasing of post-1850 economic growth. The coincidence of the postwar boom falling within the Kondratieff time band is an exceptional event. The case against Kondratieff waves is based on an examination of production, productivity, investment, absolute prices, relative prices and innovation trends. The strongest case against the Kondratieff wave phasing of economic growth is to be found in an examination of the production and investment trends of Britain, France, Germany and America. In all these countries significant growth variations have been shorter than the Kondratieff periodicity.

In much of the recent long-wave literature it is widely believed that the strongest evidence for this pattern of growth is provided by trends in the world economy. This study has shown that although the world economy witnessed major long-run discontinuities in growth, these do not belong to a long-wave pattern or a long-wave explanatory framework. The period 1850–1913 witnessed accelerating growth due to unique changes in the structure of the world economy. Allowing for the break in growth during the war years, the accelerating path lasted over the period 1850–1929. I used the phrase ‘shocked Gerschenkronian catching-up waves’ (G-waves) to describe the observed world growth path after 1850, since relative backwardness and differential growth rates across nations figure centrally in my account of the world growth path. G-waves are historical waves of irregular length and amplitude.