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When Did Growth Begin? New Estimates of Productivity Growth in England from 1250 to 1870

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  • Paul Bouscasse
  • Emi Nakamura
  • Jón Steinsson
Abstract
We estimate productivity growth in England from 1250 to 1870. Real wages over this period were heavily influenced by plague-induced swings in the population. Our estimates account for these Malthusian dynamics. We find that productivity growth was zero prior to 1600. Productivity growth began in 1600—almost a century before the Glorious Revolution. Thus, the onset of productivity growth preceded the bourgeois institutional reforms of 17th century England. We estimate productivity growth of 2% per decade between 1600 and 1800, increasing to 5% per decade between 1810 and 1860. Much of the increase in output growth during the Industrial Revolution is explained by structural change—the falling importance of land in production—rather than faster productivity growth. Stagnant real wages in the 18th and early 19th centuries—“Engel’s Pause”—is explained by rapid population growth putting downward pressure on real wages. Yet, feedback from population growth to real wages is sufficiently weak to permit sustained deviations from the “iron law of wages” prior to the Industrial Revolution.

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  • Paul Bouscasse & Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2021. "When Did Growth Begin? New Estimates of Productivity Growth in England from 1250 to 1870," NBER Working Papers 28623, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28623
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    4. Terence Kealey, 2022. "The Industrial Revolution as a collective action problem: The House of Commons games patents of monopoly, November 1601," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 418-441, October.
    5. David Hugh-Jones & Mich Tvede, 2022. "Technology of Cultural Transmission I: The Printing Press," University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series 2022-01, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

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