At the turn of the 20th century, industrialization in Western Europe and North America saw new countries emerge (or return) as major economic powers. Germany (established in 1871) and the United States were the two countries that began to challenge the established powers such as Britain and the Netherlands on an industrial scale, while France's invigorated banking system compensated for its slow rate of industrialization. This period also saw Scandinavian countries catch up with modernization rates observed in other Western European countries; the wealth of natural resources, increased industrial output, and strong shipping networks combined to allow GDP per capita to grow at rates similar to the United States and France and Germany.

Between 1970 and 1913, GDP per capita in the three emerging regions roughly doubled, outpacing growth in countries considered economic and industrial "leaders" for most of the 1800s. While Britain had been the leading global superpower for most of the 19th century and still maintained healthy economic growth in the given period, the rise of Germany and the U.S. at this time would (and, later, the Soviet Union) go on to shape global economic development over the subsequent decades.

Over the early 20th century, labor productivity in terms of GDP per hour worked increased significantly across Western Europe. The given years respectively are those that preceded both world wars and the end of the recovery period in 1950. Over the entire period, GDP per capita per work hour increased by approximately 170 percent in both Sweden and Switzerland, while Germany was the only country to see its growth fall over the 1940s.

Since 1980, Europe's largest economies have consistently been France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, although the former Soviet Union's economy was the largest in the 1980s, and Russia's economy has been larger than Spain's since 2010. Since Soviet dissolution, Germany has always had the largest economy in Europe, while either France or the UK has had the second largest economy depending on the year. Italy's economy was of a relatively similar size to that of the UK and France until the mid-2000s when it started to diverge, resulting in a difference of approximately 800 billion U.S dollars by 2018. Russia's economy had overtaken both Italy and Spain's in 2012, but has fallen since 2014 due to the drop in international oil prices and the economic sanctions imposed for its annexation of Crimea - economic growth is expected to be comparatively low in Russia in the coming years due to the economic fallout of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In 2025, Germany, now the world's third-largest economy, was estimated at over *** trillion U.S. dollars.

The early-20th century is often considered the most destructive period in European history, with the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s being defined by various aspects including recovery from the First World War, as well as fluctuating political and economic stability. In particular, the onset of the Great Depression in the U.S. created a ripple effect that was felt across the globe, especially in Europe. During this time, all major currencies were connected via the gold standard; however, several European countries had suspended the gold standard to print additional money during the First World War, and conditions had not re-stabilized by the onset of the Great Depression in the U.S. - the given countries would all abandon the gold standard by the outbreak of war in 1939. Germany Additionally, American investors withdrew much of their capital from Europe in the wake of the Wall Street Crash in 1929, and the U.S. government ceased all loans to Germany and demanded advanced repayments. The German economy had already collapsed in the early-1920s, and it became dependent on American loans to stabilize its economy and meet its reparation payments - this move by the American government caused a German economic collapse once more, sending the economy into a downward spiral. Regional differences For France, its industrial output dropped in the wake of the Great Depression, and it would not reach these levels again until after the Second World War. In contrast, the Soviet Union was largely shielded from the Great Depression, and its industrial output grew significantly in the build-up to WWII (albeit from a much less-developed starting point). For the other three countries listed, output would not reach pre-Depression levels until at least 1934.

Over the late 20th century, European integration became fundamental to Western Europe's economic growth. Developed nations overtook developing economies as the most common destination for European products, and in Germany alone the share of exports going to the EU and U.S. rose from 23 percent in 1961 to 62 percent in 1990. In terms of contributions to GDP, the Netherlands saw the largest share of its GDP come from exports in each of the given years; in 1973, Dutch exports were responsible for approximately 41 percent of GDP, which was almost four times the global average.

For most of the 20th century, Ireland stood out as one of the poorest countries in Western Europe, not experience the same post-war boom in prosperity that was felt by virtually all other countries in the region. At the onset of the 1973-1975 Recession, Ireland's GDP per capita was less than 60 percent of GDP per capita in the European Union and less than a quarter of GDP per capita in the U.S. Catching up in the 1980s By the 1980s, a wave of foreign investment saw Ireland's export sector grow exponentially, and between 1975 and 1990, Ireland had the second-fastest growth of exports in the world (behind Japan). Additionally, as Ireland joined the European Communities in 1973, it became more integrated into the European economy; before 1973, around three-quarters of Ireland's exports went to the United Kingdom, but this fell to one-third by the 1990s. Ireland's period of industrialization was relatively short in comparison to its neighbors, as it transitioned from an agriculture-based economy to a producer of high-tech products and services. Ireland's low tax rate and other incentives also attracted many American tech companies in the 1980s, such as Apple, Intel, and Microsoft, who were keen on establishing a presence in the European Union. The Celtic Tiger Named after the Four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan), which experienced rapid economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s, the period of prosperity between the 1990s and 2000s in Ireland has been dubbed the "Celtic Tiger." Over this time, Ireland's GDP per capita grew to exceed the average in the EU by 10 percent in 2000, and it would eventually surpass that of the U.S. in 2003. Ireland was severely impacted by the financial crisis of 2008 due to the instability of its property sector and extensive lending by banks, and it was the first European economy to go into recession. By the late 2010s, most sectors of the economy had returned to pre-recession levels, and today, Ireland's GDP per capita remains among the top in the world, second in the EU only to Luxembourg.

In 1950, at the end of the recovery period that followed the Second World War, GDP per capita across the Eastern Bloc varied greatly by country. Czechoslovakia, the most industrialized country in the Bloc after East Germany, had a GDP per capita that was 69 percent of the rate across Western European** countries. In contrast, Romania's GDP per capita was less than a quarter of the Western European average in 1950. 1950-1989 Generally speaking, Eastern European economies grew faster and made gains on those of the west (not including Mediterranean region) in the 1950s and 1960s, however, a series of recessions and increasing debts meant that this gap widened in the 1970s and 1980s. By 1989, as communism in Europe came to an end, the difference between overall GDP per capita in the Eastern and Western Blocs returned to a similar rate as in 1950, although it varied by country. The Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, three of the larger economies of those given, had a lower share of western GDP per capita in 1989 than in 1950, while the smaller economies of the Balkans saw an increase. 1989-2000 Between 1989 and 2000, the European Union's GDP per capita grew faster than in the former Eastern Bloc countries. However, the end of communism did negatively impact EU economies in the early 1990s. Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to make gains on the west in these years, although this was more to do with its poor economy in the 1980s. The former-Soviet states, in particular, saw GDP per capita drop below one-quarter of the European Union's rate over this decade, as post-Soviet economic recovery did not realistically begin until the late 1990s.

Compared with the other major European powers of the 19th and 20th century, France's industrialization was comparatively slow. In global history, the period between 1815 and 1914 is often referred to as the Pax Britannica; a time where Britain emerged as the leading superpower and relations between the Great Powers was very peaceful, allowing many Western European countries to undergo industrial revolutions. In France, however, the term "industrial revolution" was less applicable, as it remained a fairly agricultural society; transportation infrastructure was poor, and large urban centers made their money through banking, shipping, and artisanal production. It was only during the 1840s, where France's railway network developed, that urbanization and industrialization began to take off, but it still lagged behind Britain, Germany, and Belgium for the remainder of the century. The loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany in 1871 significantly hindered France's industrialization, as it was one of the country's richest mining regions. Interwar period France then reclaimed Alsace-Lorraine after the First World War, and occupied two of Germany's most industrious areas during the 1920s; the Rhineland was occupied through the Treaty of Versailles until 1930, and the Ruhr region from 1923 to 1925, when Germany defaulted on its reparation payments. Because of this, industrial output was higher in the 1920s than in the 1930s, where it declined due to the Great Depression, withdrawal from Germany, and then the Second World War. Figures are missing from some years due to German occupation, but in 1944, the year of France's liberation, output was almost a third of its pre-war level. Post-war recovery Within three to four years, French industrial output had returned to a similar level as the 1930s, and this marked the beginning of Les Trente Glorieuses (the glorious thirty). These three decades saw uninterrupted economic growth, and industrial output soared. Using 1963 as a benchmark, industrial output doubled from 1951 to 1963, and tripled from 1951 to 1971. France, along with West Germany, played a key role in European integration in this period, which laid the groundwork for the European Union's formation. Industrial growth then came to a halt in the mid-1970s, due to the 1973-75 Recession, at which point the government put safeguards in place to prevent uncontrolled growth in the future.

In 1800, the population of Luxembourg was estimated to be 127,000, a figure which would rise steadily through the early 19 th century as the country would become an increasingly prominent city in the region. Luxembourg’s population would see its first major period of growth following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, which would result in the previously-French occupied Luxembourg being granted formal autonomy in the subsequent Congress of Vienna. As a largely agrarian state at this time, the population of Luxembourg would see several periods of growth and decline throughout the remainder of the 20th century, as many residents emigrated abroad to countries such as the United States in search of work. Nevertheless, the population of Luxembourg would rise to over 235,000 by the turn of the century, as Dutch modernization and the removal of the city’s fortifications in the 1867 Treaty of London would allow for a greater expansion of the city proper.

The first half of the 20 th century would largely be a period of stagnation for the country, as the country would see large periods of stagnation in the 1910s and throughout the 1930s and 1940s, as occupation in both World Wars and the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic) would see massive damage to the city in both human and economic terms. Luxembourg’s population would see significant growth in the country’s population, particularly so following the creation of the European Union in 1958 (Luxembourg was one of the six founding members of the union). Growth would accelerate even further following the 1980s, as increases in industrialization and accompanying economic growth would lead to an increasingly growing immigrant population from other EU nations in Luxembourg, which by 2015 would account for nearly half the citizens in Luxembourg. As a result of this growth, in 2020, Luxembourg is estimated to have a population of 626,000.

During the eighteenth century, it is estimated that France's population grew by roughly fifty percent, from 19.7 million in 1700, to 29 million by 1800. In France itself, the 1700s are remembered for the end of King Louis XIV's reign in 1715, the Age of Enlightenment, and the French Revolution. During this century, the scientific and ideological advances made in France and across Europe challenged the leadership structures of the time, and questioned the relationship between monarchial, religious and political institutions and their subjects. France was arguably the most powerful nation in the world in these early years, with the second largest population in Europe (after Russia); however, this century was defined by a number of costly, large-scale conflicts across Europe and in the new North American theater, which saw the loss of most overseas territories (particularly in North America) and almost bankrupted the French crown. A combination of regressive taxation, food shortages and enlightenment ideologies ultimately culminated in the French Revolution in 1789, which brought an end to the Ancien Régime, and set in motion a period of self-actualization.

War and peace

After a volatile and tumultuous decade, in which tens of thousands were executed by the state (most infamously: guillotined), relative stability was restored within France as Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799, and the policies of the revolution became enforced. Beyond France's borders, the country was involved in a series of large scale wars for two almost decades, and the First French Empire eventually covered half of Europe by 1812. In 1815, Napoleon was defeated outright, the empire was dissolved, and the monarchy was restored to France; nonetheless, a large number of revolutionary and Napoleonic reforms remained in effect afterwards, and the ideas had a long-term impact across the globe. France experienced a century of comparative peace in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars; there were some notable uprisings and conflicts, and the monarchy was abolished yet again, but nothing on the scale of what had preceded or what was to follow. A new overseas colonial empire was also established in the late 1800s, particularly across Africa and Southeast Asia. Through most of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, France had the second largest population in Europe (after Russia), however political instability and the economic prioritization of Paris meant that the entire country did not urbanize or industrialize at the same rate as the other European powers. Because of this, Germany and Britain entered the twentieth century with larger populations, and other regions, such as Austria or Belgium, had overtaken France in terms of industrialization; the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War was also a major contributor to this.

World Wars and contemporary France

Coming into the 1900s, France had a population of approximately forty million people (officially 38 million* due to to territorial changes), and there was relatively little growth in the first half of the century. France was comparatively unprepared for a large scale war, however it became one of the most active theaters of the First World War when Germany invaded via Belgium in 1914, with the ability to mobilize over eight million men. By the war's end in 1918, France had lost almost 1.4 million in the conflict, and approximately 300,000 in the Spanish Flu pandemic that followed. Germany invaded France again during the Second World War, and occupied the country from 1940, until the Allied counter-invasion liberated the country during the summer of 1944. France lost around 600,000 people in the course of the war, over half of which were civilians. Following the war's end, the country experienced a baby boom, and the population grew by approximately twenty million people in the next fifty years (compared to just one million in the previous fifty years). Since the 1950s, France's economy quickly grew to be one of the strongest in the world, despite losing the vast majority of its overseas colonial empire by the 1970s. A wave of migration, especially from these former colonies, has greatly contributed to the growth and diversity of France's population today, which stands at over 65 million people in 2020.

Although it was not a united country until 1871, industrialization across Germany began in the early 1800s, and it quickly saw Germany emerge as a Great Power in Europe. German industrialization was largely driven by coal and steel production, of which Germany had rich deposits, and these were used in construction and infrastructure to modernize the country. The mechanization of agriculture also fed into this, as many people from rural regions flocked to cities in search of work. Many of the coal and iron deposits were located in Germany's west, particularly around the Rhine and Ruhr regions, and industry here benefitted from strong rail and water transport networks. Today, with over five million inhabitants, the Ruhr region is the most populous metropolitan area in the country, largely due to these developments. While Germany was among the most advanced nations in the world by the end of the 19th century, industrial output grew higher still in the 20th; between 1896 and 1913, industrial output in Germany doubled. Interwar turmoil After the First World War, Germany lost its resource rich territories of Alsace-Lorraine and the Saarland, while the Rhine and Ruhr regions were also occupied by France, and much of its industrial output was sent to other countries as war reparations. Hyperinflation in 1923 also saw the collapse of the German economy, and it was not until the late-1920s that economic recovery from the war truly began, although this was also short-lived. As Germany had been dependent on financial aid from the U.S. in order to recover and meet its reparation payments, the Great Depression in the U.S. had dire consequences for the German economy. From 1929 until 1932, industrial output fell once more, and many historians point to this economic difficulty as a catalyst for the rise of nationalism and fascism in Germany. The Nazi Party then ascended to power in 1933, the year the Depression ended, and the economy was restructured to support a war of expansion. Among other factors, this involved tax breaks for large businesses, allowing cartels to control local business, increasing average working hours, and prioritizing industrial employment by importing food from the east. The strength of Germany's industry then allowed the Axis powers to take control of most of Europe during the Second World War, but it was ultimately defeated by 1945. Post-war split Following the war, Germany was split into two separate states; commonly referred to as East and West Germany. The west was a liberal democracy with a free-market economy, while the east was a communist state with a command economy, yet both became leaders in their respective trading blocks during the Cold War. When looking at industrial growth over the next three decades, using output in 1963 as a benchmark, East Germany's output grew over nine times larger from 1949 to 1975, whereas West Germany's grew by a factor of six. It is important to remember, however, that the west was larger, more populous, and starting from a more industrially developed point than the east, therefore it was consistently more advanced. The West also had fewer restrictions placed on it from other nations after the war, and it played a leading role in European integration; whereas the East was influenced more heavily by the USSR and it had less trade with other advanced nations, which hindered its technological development. West Germany's output took a hit in the 1970s due to the 1973-1975 Recession, whereas the East's economy was protected as it had little trade with the U.S. and its partners. However, the West quickly recovered and economic stagnation in the East throughout the 1980s would contribute to the eventual collapse of the Eastern Bloc, and Germany was officially reunified in 1990.

In 1800, the region of Germany was not a single, unified nation, but a collection of decentralized, independent states, bound together as part of the Holy Roman Empire. This empire was dissolved, however, in 1806, during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras in Europe, and the German Confederation was established in 1815. Napoleonic reforms led to the abolition of serfdom, extension of voting rights to property-owners, and an overall increase in living standards. The population grew throughout the remainder of the century, as improvements in sanitation and medicine (namely, mandatory vaccination policies) saw child mortality rates fall in later decades. As Germany industrialized and the economy grew, so too did the argument for nationhood; calls for pan-Germanism (the unification of all German-speaking lands) grew more popular among the lower classes in the mid-1800s, especially following the revolutions of 1948-49. In contrast, industrialization and poor harvests also saw high unemployment in rural regions, which led to waves of mass migration, particularly to the U.S.. In 1886, the Austro-Prussian War united northern Germany under a new Confederation, while the remaining German states (excluding Austria and Switzerland) joined following the Franco-Prussian War in 1871; this established the German Empire, under the Prussian leadership of Emperor Wilhelm I and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. 1871 to 1945 - Unification to the Second World War The first decades of unification saw Germany rise to become one of Europe's strongest and most advanced nations, and challenge other world powers on an international scale, establishing colonies in Africa and the Pacific. These endeavors were cut short, however, when the Austro-Hungarian heir apparent was assassinated in Sarajevo; Germany promised a "blank check" of support for Austria's retaliation, who subsequently declared war on Serbia and set the First World War in motion. Viewed as the strongest of the Central Powers, Germany mobilized over 11 million men throughout the war, and its army fought in all theaters. As the war progressed, both the military and civilian populations grew increasingly weakened due to malnutrition, as Germany's resources became stretched. By the war's end in 1918, Germany suffered over 2 million civilian and military deaths due to conflict, and several hundred thousand more during the accompanying influenza pandemic. Mass displacement and the restructuring of Europe's borders through the Treaty of Versailles saw the population drop by several million more.

Reparations and economic mismanagement also financially crippled Germany and led to bitter indignation among many Germans in the interwar period; something that was exploited by Adolf Hitler on his rise to power. Reckless printing of money caused hyperinflation in 1923, when the currency became so worthless that basic items were priced at trillions of Marks; the introduction of the Rentenmark then stabilized the economy before the Great Depression of 1929 sent it back into dramatic decline. When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the Nazi government disregarded the Treaty of Versailles' restrictions and Germany rose once more to become an emerging superpower. Hitler's desire for territorial expansion into eastern Europe and the creation of an ethnically-homogenous German empire then led to the invasion of Poland in 1939, which is considered the beginning of the Second World War in Europe. Again, almost every aspect of German life contributed to the war effort, and more than 13 million men were mobilized. After six years of war, and over seven million German deaths, the Axis powers were defeated and Germany was divided into four zones administered by France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the U.S.. Mass displacement, shifting borders, and the relocation of peoples based on ethnicity also greatly affected the population during this time. 1945 to 2020 - Partition and Reunification In the late 1940s, cold war tensions led to two distinct states emerging in Germany; the Soviet-controlled east became the communist German Democratic Republic (DDR), and the three western zones merged to form the democratic Federal Republic of Germany. Additionally, Berlin was split in a similar fashion, although its location deep inside DDR territory created series of problems and opportunities for the those on either side. Life quickly changed depending on which side of the border one lived. Within a decade, rapid economic recovery saw West Germany become western Europe's strongest economy and a key international player. In the east, living standards were much lower, although unemployment was almost non-existent; internationally, East Germany was the strongest economy in the Eastern Bloc (after the USSR), though it eventually fell behind the West by the 1970s. The restriction of movement between the two states also led to labor shortages in t...

Inflation is generally defined as the continued increase in the average prices of goods and services in a given region. Following the extremely high global inflation experienced in the 1980s and 1990s, global inflation has been relatively stable since the turn of the millennium, usually hovering between three and five percent per year. There was a sharp increase in 2008 due to the global financial crisis now known as the Great Recession, but inflation was fairly stable throughout the 2010s, before the current inflation crisis began in 2021. Recent years Despite the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the global inflation rate fell to 3.26 percent in the pandemic's first year, before rising to 4.66 percent in 2021. This increase came as the impact of supply chain delays began to take more of an effect on consumer prices, before the Russia-Ukraine war exacerbated this further. A series of compounding issues such as rising energy and food prices, fiscal instability in the wake of the pandemic, and consumer insecurity have created a new global recession, and global inflation in 2024 is estimated to have reached 5.76 percent. This is the highest annual increase in inflation since 1996. Venezuela Venezuela is the country with the highest individual inflation rate in the world, forecast at around 200 percent in 2022. While this is figure is over 100 times larger than the global average in most years, it actually marks a decrease in Venezuela's inflation rate, which had peaked at over 65,000 percent in 2018. Between 2016 and 2021, Venezuela experienced hyperinflation due to the government's excessive spending and printing of money in an attempt to curve its already-high inflation rate, and the wave of migrants that left the country resulted in one of the largest refugee crises in recent years. In addition to its economic problems, political instability and foreign sanctions pose further long-term problems for Venezuela. While hyperinflation may be coming to an end, it remains to be seen how much of an impact this will have on the economy, how living standards will change, and how many refugees may return in the coming years.