The lure of aggregates and the pitfalls of the patriarchal perspective: a critique of the high wage economy interpretation of the British industrial revolution

The new meta‐narrative of the industrial revolution contends that Britain was a high wage economy and that this itself caused industrialization. Contemporary inventions, although derived from scientific discoveries shared with mainland Europe, could only be profitable in the context of Britain's factor prices. Therefore, important inventions were only developed in Britain where they enabled access to a growth path that transcended trajectories associated with more labour‐intensive production methods. The criticism presented here concerns perspective and methodology. The account of the high wage economy is misleading because it focuses on men and male wages, underestimates the relative caloric needs of women and children, and bases its view of living standards on an ahistorical and false household economy. A more accurate picture of the structure and functioning of working‐class households provides an alternative explanation of inventive and innovative activity in terms of the availability of cheap and amenable female and child labour and thereby offers a broader interpretation of the industrial revolution.     

Spinning the industrial revolution

The prevailing explanation for why the industrial revolution occurred first in Britain during the last quarter of the eighteenth century is Allen's ‘high wage economy’ view, which claims that the high cost of labour relative to capital and fuel incentivized innovation and the adoption of new techniques. This article presents new empirical evidence on hand spinning before the industrial revolution and demonstrates that there was no such ‘high wage economy’ in spinning, which was a leading sector of industrialization. We quantify the working lives of frequently ignored female and child spinners who were crucial to the British textile industry with evidence of productivity and wages from the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. Spinning emerges as a widespread, low‐productivity, low‐wage employment, in which wages did not rise substantially in advance of the introduction of the jenny and water frame. The motivation for mechanization must be sought elsewhere.     

Counting the industrial revolution

In all my experience … I have found how insecure all details of mere figures are upon which to build an argument. … It is easy to add a little here, and subtract a little there; gently to slip in a figure, it may be a cypher, among your data; slyly to make what seems a reasonable postulate in your premises, but which turns out in the result to be a begging of the question-and behold you gain your point, and triumph, until it is found that your adversary, having access to the same stores of arithmetic, just proves his case and refutes yours with the same facility.'(Lord Brougham, 1849)²     

Prices and the growth of the knowledge economy in Sweden and Western Europe before the industrial revolution

Abstract

This article uses long-term series of real prices for various goods and services to analyse the evolution of the knowledge economy before the Industrial Revolution by focusing on Sweden in comparison with other European countries. During the early modern period, the relative price of knowledge-intensive goods and services, such as iron, paper, salt, sea transports and silver, decreased relative to a Consumer Price Index. The increased productivity levels of these goods and services were caused by increased division of labour and accelerated diffusion of knowledge. However, the real price of foodstuff tended to increase, implying that living standards declined with increased population. Early modern Western Europe acquired a peculiar price structure, characterized by low prices of industrial goods relative to the price of food. Only with the advent of industrial society could the knowledge economy escape the Malthusian entrapment.     

The minimum wage in an adverse selection economy

This paper examines the welfare implications of minimum wagelegislation in a simple two-sector model, in which greater effortis required to produce in the higher productivity sector andindividual ability is private. An adverse selection distortionarises so that, without a minimum wage, too many workers workin the primary sector because of the high wage based on averageability. These workers produce relatively little, while exertingeffort. The paper shows that a minimum wage, in the low-productivitysector, can correct this distortion but may lower welfare.     

The macroeconomic implications of wage indexation in a two-sector open economy

Zusammenfassung Die makro?konomischen Implikationen der Lohnindexierung in einer offenen Volkswirtschaft mit zwei Sektoren. - Abweichend von der Literatur werden in diesem Aufsatz die kurzfristigen Implikationen einer Lohnindexierung im Rahmen einer offenen Volkswirtschaft untersucht, die zweierlei Güter produziert und verbraucht: einerseits international nicht gehandelte Güter, die nur im Inland produziert und konsumiert werden, und andererseits international gehandelte Güter, die auch im Ausland verkauft und konsumiert werden k?nnen. Die Hauptergebnisse der Arbeit zeigen, da? dann, wenn die Volkswirtschaft nur nominalen St?rungen (aus dem Inland oder dem Ausland) ausgesetzt ist, eine in bezug auf die Preise volle Lohnindexierung die Schwankungen der realen Produktion im allgemeinen nicht neutralisiert. Au?erdem wird gezeigt, wie bei voller Lohnindexierung monet?re Schocks sowie Angebots- und Nachfrageschocks die Handelsbilanz beeinflussen. Weiterhin wird zu verstehen gegeben, da? der optimale Grad der Lohnindexierung im Hinblick auf monet?re St?rungen die volle Indexierung ist, im Hinblick auf St?rungen des realen Angebots dagegen die partielle Indexierung. Anders als im Schrifttum behauptet, ist eine unvollst?ndige Indexierung optimal, wenn es sich um Schocks bei der Nachfrage nach nicht handelbaren Gütern, beim ausl?ndischen Zinssatz und bei den ausl?ndischen Preisen handelbarer Güter handelt.

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Résumé Implications macro-économiques de l’indexation des salaires dans une économie ouverte à deux secteurs. - En contraste avec la littérature cet article examine les implications à court terme de l’indexation des salaires en cadre d’une économie ouverte dans laquelle l’économie locale produit et consomme deux biens: des biens non-commercés qui ne sont produits et consommés que localement et des biens commercés qui peuvent être achetés et consommés à l’étranger. Les résultats principaux de cet article sont que l’indexation totale des salaires aux prix ne neutralise pas en général les fluctuations de la production réelle si l’économie n’est soumise qu’aux perturbances nominales, soit locales ou extérieures. Il est aussi trouvé que - au cas d’une indexation totale des salaires - des chocs monétaires ne changent pas le solde de la balance de compte courant, que des chocs à la demande des deux biens aggravent la détérioration de cette balance, que des chocs positifs au taux d’intérêt étranger accentuent l’amélioration de cette balance et que des chocs à l’offre des deux biens ont des effets ambigus sur le solde de cette balance. De plus, il est suggéré que le degré optimum de l’indexation des salaires est complet vis-à-vis des perturbances monétaires et partiel vis-à-vis des chocs réels d’offre. Mais en contraste avec la littérature, le degré optimum de l’indexation des salaires est incomplet vis-à-vis des chocs à la demande des biens non-commercés, des chocs au taux d’intérêt étranger et des chocs au prix étranger des biens commerces.

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Resumen Implicaciones macroeconómicas de la indización de salarios en una economía abierta con dos sectores. - A diferencia de la literatura existente, en este trabajo se examinan las implicaciones de corto plazo de la indización de salarios en una economía abierta, la cual produce y consume dos tipos de bienes: bienes no comerciables, que son producidos y consumidos sólo en el país, y bienes comerciables, que pueden ser producidos y consumidos tanto en el país como en el exterior. Los resultados más importantes indican que si la economía está sometida sólo a perturbaciones nominales, de origen nacional o extranjero, la indización completa del salario con respecta al nivel de precios generalmente no neutraliza a las fluctuaciones de la producción real. También, en caso de una indización completa del salario con respecta al nivel de precios, shocks monetarios no influyen en la magnitud del saldo de la balanza comercial mientras que shocks de demanda para ambos bienes agudizan el deterioro de la balanza comercial, shocks positivos de la tasa de interés en el exterior acentúan el mejoramiento de la balanza comercial y shocks de oferta para los dos bienes muestran efectos ambiguos sobre el saldo de la balanza comercial. Además, se sugiere que el grado óptimo de indización de salarios protege completamente contra perturbaciones monetarias, mas sólo parcialmente contra shocks reales de oferta. Contrastando con la literatura existente, el grado óptimo de indización del salario no protege completamente contra shocks de demanda para bienes no comerciables, shocks de la tasa de interés en el exterior y shocks del precio internacional de bienes comerciables.

     

The returns to invention during the British industrial revolution

It was a commonplace among contemporaries, and remains received wisdom today, that inventors were poorly remunerated during the industrial revolution. Adapting a dataset of 759 British inventors, this article presents the first large‐scale attempt to examine the issue systematically. Using probate information, the article shows that inventors were extremely wealthy relative to the adult male population. Inventors were also significantly wealthier than another group who would have received a similar inheritance (in terms of both financial and social capital) and entered similar occupations: their brothers. Their additional wealth was derived from inventive activities: invention paid.     

China's industrial revolution: A new perspective

In “The Industrial Structure of Production: An Outline of a Research Program,” Ronald Coase and Ning Wang (2001) made a plea for a new economic research program that can go beyond the Arrow-Debreu framework and explain China's miraculous rise. They point out that the greatest trouble with the Arrow-Debreu framework lies in its inability to explain production. In this article I will push this insight further to shed new light on why and how production, or mass production in particular, emerged and mushroomed in the 18th–19th century England, the 19th–20th century United States, and 20th-21st century China but not in other parts of the world with similar geo-developmental conditions such as the Netherlands, Mexico, or India. My central thesis is that production or firms emerge in response to market demand, yet the so-called “market” is itself a fundamental public good that must be created by a development state instead of the “invisible hand.” Therefore, the lack of industrialization in any nation seems on the surface due to the lack of mass supply, but is in fact due to the lack of a mass market, which in turn is due to the lack of powerful and strong-willed market creators.