The lockdowns in Britain in 2020 quickly led to discussion of its relative economic impact. Looking back, journalists and politicians turned to annual GDP figures from the Bank of England website, finding a fall of over 13 per cent in 1709, which was contrasted to a fall of a little under 10 per cent in 2020. The cause of the earlier collapse was widely laid at the door of the 'great frost' of 1709. How has such nonsense taken hold in public discourse and does it matter? This paper questions the robustness of GDP estimates for the early eighteenth century as well as the evidence that the winter of 1709 was especially devastating in Britain. It then considers the misunderstandings of economic life inherent in giving such agency to the great frost, as well as issues surrounding the dissemination and impact of academic research.
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