New World Economies closely examines the economic development of the Thirteen Colonies and early French Canada, looking at the impact of changing prices, capital flows, and shifts in demand. It is a companion to Egnal's earlier book, Divergent Paths, which emphasizes the influence of culture and institutions on growth. It contains seventeen tables and more than one hundred graphs, many of which are based on original data, presenting these new statistics in a series of appendices. Egnal's central argument is that the pace of economic development in the colonies reflected the rate of growth in the parent country. The book's theoretical foundation builds upon, but moves beyond, the traditional "staple thesis." Thoroughly documented and rich in quantitative data, the study traces the trajectory of economic growth by region and establishes a clear connection between colonial and European rates of growth.
