Population and sectoral labor share. The first population census of Great Britain was conducted in 1801 and once every 10 years thereafter. We use the arithmetic average of the 1801 and 1811 figures in England as its population for the decade 1800-09, and then apply the same estimate for later decades. For the period from 1700 to 1799, we deploy the yearly population estimates used by Wrigley and Schofield (1981), which are reconstructed from local parish registers. To be consistent with the timing of the census, a simple arithmetic average of yearly population figures–starting from the first year of one decade to the first year of the next decade — is used as the decennial population figure. Then, we connect population figures from the two sources to cover the entire period 1700-1909.
The share of employment in agriculture is approximated by the share of males employed in agriculture (Clark, 2001), where the number of farm workers is estimated from the population censuses of 1801 an onwards. For the years before 1800, Clark builds on an estimate made by Lindert and Williamson (1982) that the farm labor force was no more than 53 percent of the adult male population in the 1750s. Clark applies a linear interpolation method to recover the share of male labor in agriculture for the 1750-1800 period and applies an income elasticity approach to recover that share in agriculture back to 1700.
Per capita GDP. For the period from 1700 to 1869, Clark (2001) provides decennial real per capita GDP for England and Wales. We use this data series for England with the implicit assumption that per capita GDP is the same across the two regions, an assumption that is often made by economic historians in similar constructions of income data. To construct real per capita GDP for the 1870-1909 period, we use the growth rates of real GDP per worker reported in the most recent study published by Feinstein (1990). We use his updated figures because his earlier estimates of per capita GDP were previously regarded as the best available information (Mitchell, 1988). Based on Feinstein (1990), the growth rates of real GDP per worker in the United Kingdom was 1.32 percent for 1856-73, 0.9 percent for 1873-82, 1.43 percent for 1882-99, and 0.31 percent for 1899-1913. Using these figures, we compute the weight-adjusted decennial growth rates of real GDP per worker for the four decades from 1870 to 1909, and we are thus able to form an index of decennial real GDP per worker. Combining this with information on the share of the labor force in the total population from the decennial population census (Mitchell, 1962), we are able to construct an index of decennial real per capita GDP for the United Kingdom. Connecting this index with the index for earlier decades reported in Clark gives us an index of real per capita GDP for England for 1700-1909.
Agricultural mechanization and food imports. The systematic adoption and diffusion of farm machinery in England began in the early 1800s. Despite the sparsity of historical data, John Walton creatively relied on farm sale advertisements to quantitatively document the adoption of farm machines for selective regions of England and Wales for the period between 1753 and 1880 (Walton, 1979). The original data consist of 3,115 advertisements for dispersal sales of farm stocks that appeared in the Reading Mercury and Jackson’s Oxford Journal in Oxfordshire in England. Walton’s study presents time series information on the percentage of farm households adopting each of eight farm machines, including turnip cutters, cake crushers, and reaping, mowing, haymaking, chaff, threshing and winnowing machines.
1700-1909 period. Using information on the farm ownership of specific machines, we compute the first index as the probability of a typical farm household adopting at least one machine and the second index as the probability of it adopting at least two machines during individual decades. We use these two indices to approximate the extent of agricultural mechanization. Quantitative analysis of the model, which assumes subsistence food consumption in a closed economy, requires making adjustments to England’s food trade with other economies. In particular, the model simulation uses information on food imports or exports as a per- centage of domestic agricultural production. Although Mitchell (1962) reports the value of net food imports into the United Kingdom from 1854 onwards, estimates of earlier years had to be drawn from other sources. Overton (1996) and Deane and Cole (1967) both present decennial data on food imports relative to domestic production, but there are trade-offs in choosing between the two sources–the former covers the longer data series of 1700 to1859, but has missing values for several decades, whereas the latter has a shorter series, from 1700 to 1820, but without missing values. On the whole, the two data series report very consistent trends. We construct a net import/output series for 1700-1851 based on the Overton series by applying a linear interpolation scheme to fill in the missing data. For 1850-1909, we divide the value of decennial imports (grain and flour plus meat and animals) taken from Mitchell (1962, pp. 298-300) by the value of agricultural production he reports (p. 366). We connect the two time series by normalizing the overlapping decade of 1850 to a common value.
Relative price. Clark (2004) uses a consistent method to construct an annual price series for English agricultural output in the years 1209-1912. This series consists of information from 26 commodities: wheat, barley, oats, rye, peas, beans, potatoes, hops, straw, mustard seed, saffron, hay, beef, mutton, pork, bacon, tallow, eggs, milk, cheese, butter, wool, fire- wood, timber, cider, and honey. We take the arithmetic average of farm price indices within decades to form our decennial agricultural price series for the period from 1700 to 1909.
There is no single data source that provides aggregate price series on nonagricultural pro- duction for the English economy during the historical period we cover. However, Mitchell’s work (1962) contains sufficient information to enable the construction of a long price series for principal industrial products. For the period between 1700 and 1800, we use the Schumpeter- Gilboy price indices for producer goods, which consist of 12 industrial products–bricks, coal, lead, pantiles, hemp, leather backs, train oil, tallow, lime, glue, and copper. This series ends in 1801.
To continue the price series for 1800-1913, we adopt the Rousseaux price index for prin- cipal industrial products, which significantly overlaps in terms of product coverage with the
Schumpeter-Gilboy price index (Mitchell, 1962). From 1800 to 1850, the Rousseaux price index covers coal, pig iron, mercury, tin, lead, copper, hemp, cotton, wool, flax, tar, tobacco, hides, skins, tallow, hair, silk, and building wood. For the years between 1850 and 1909, the index covers coal, pig iron, tin, lead, copper, hemp, cotton, wool, linseed oil, palm oil, flax, tar, jute, tobacco, hides, skins, foreign tallow, native tallow, silk, and building wood. We con- nect the two price indices and use them as a constructed price series for the nonagricultural sector.
Wage and land rent. In his study of agricultural performance and the Industrial Revolu- tion, Clark (2002) assembles data on the key variables for English agriculture for 1500-1912 from various published sources. Based on Clark’s analysis, we use the average day wages of adult male farm workers outside harvest time as a proxy for the wages of basic labor–the trend of this series closely resembles the changes in real wages for all workers from 1770 to 1870, the period studied by Feinstein (1998). The land rents are the market rental values of farmland, including payments for tithes and taxes.
References
[1] Acemoglu, Deron and Zilibotti, Fabrizio. “Was Prometheus Unbound by Chance? Risk, Diversification and Growth.” Journal of Political Economy, August 1997, 105 (4), pp. 705-51.
[2] Becker, Gary S., Murphy, Kevin M. and Tamura, Robert. “Human Capital, Fertility, and Economic Growth.” Journal of Political Economy, October 1990, Part 2, 98 (5), pp. S12-37.
[3] Caselli, Francesco and Coleman, Wilbur John, II. “The US Structural Transformation and Regional Convergence: A Reinterpretation.” Journal of Political Economy, June 2001, 109, pp. 584-616.
[4] Clark, Gregory. “The Secret History of the Industrial Revolution.” Unpublished manu- script, Department of Economics, University of California, Davis, 2001.
[5] Clark, Gregory. “The Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution: England, 1500-1912,” Unpublished manuscript, Department of Economics, University of Califor- nia, Davis, 2002.
[6] Clark, Gregory. “The Price History of English Agriculture, 1209-1914.” Research in Economic History, 2004, (22), pp. 41-123.
[7] Clark, Gregory. A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2007.
[8] Crafts, Nicholas F. R. and Harley, C. Knick. “Output Growth and the Industrial Rev- olution: A Restatement of the Cradts-Harley View.” Economic History Review, 1992, 45, pp. 703-730.
[9] Deane, Phyllis, and Cole, W.A. British Economic Growth 1688-1959, Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
[10] Doepke, Matthias. “Accounting for Fertility Decline During the Transition to Growth.” Journal of Economic Growth, 2004, 9, pp. 347-383.
[11] Echevarria, Cristina. “Changes in Sectoral Composition Associated with Economic Growth.” International Economic Review, 1997, 38 (2), pp. 431-52.
[12] Feinstein, Charles. “What Really Happened to Real Wages?: Trends in Wages, Prices, and Productivity in the United Kingdom, 1880-1913.” Economic History Review, Au- gust 1990, 43 (3), pp. 329-355.
[13] Feinstein, Charles. “Pessimism Perpetuated: Real Wages and the Standard of Living in Britain During and After the Industrial Revolution.” Journal of Economic History, September 1998, 58 (3), pp. 625-658.
[14] Galor, Oded. “From Stagnation to Growth: Unified Growth Theory.” In Philippe Aghion and Steven N. Durlauf, eds., Handbook of Economic Growth. New York: North- Holland, 2005, pp. 171-293.
[15] Galor, Oded and Weil, David N. “Population, Technology, and Growth: From Malthu- sian Stagnation to the Demographic Transition and Beyond.” American Economic Re- view, 2000, 90 (4), pp. 806-828.
[16] Goodfriend, Marvin and McDermott, John. “Early Development.” American Economic Review, 1995, 85 (1), pp. 116-133.
[17] Gollin, Douglas, Parente, Stephen L., and Rogerson, Richard. “The Role of Agriculture in Development.” American Economic Review, 2002, 92, pp. 160-9.
[18] Gollin, Douglas, Parente, Stephen L., and Rogerson, Richard. “The Food Problem and the Evolution of International Income Levels.” Journal of Monetary Economics, 2007, 54, pp. 1230-1255.
[19] Hansen, Gary D. and Prescott, Edward C. “Malthus to Solow.” American Economic Review, 2002, 92, pp. 1205-17.
[20] Hayami, Yujiro and Ruttan, Vernon W. Agricultural Development: An International Perspective. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1971.
[21] Hayashi, Fumio and Prescott, Edward C. “The Depressing Effect of Agricultural Insti- tutions on the Prewar Japanese Economy.” Journal of Political Economy, 2008, 116 (4), pp. 573-632.
[22] Harley, C. Knick. “British Industrial Revolution before 1841: Evidence of Slower Growth during the Industrial Revolution.” Journal of Economic History, 1982, 42, pp. 267-89. [23] Huffman, Wallace and Evenson, Robert. Science for Agriculture: A Long-Term Per-
spective, Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University, 1993.
[24] Jones, Charles I. “Was an Industrial Revolution Inevitable? Economic Growth over the Very Long Run.” Advances in Macroeconomics, 2001, pp. 1-43.
[25] Jorgenson, D. W. “The Development of a Dual Economy.” Economic Journal, 1961, 71, pp. 309-334.
[26] Johnson, D. Gale. “Agriculture and the Wealth of Nations.” American Economic Re- view, 1997, 87, pp. 1-12.
[27] Johnston, Bruce F. and Mellor, John W. “The Role of Agriculture in Economic Devel- opment,” American Economic Review, 1961, 51 (4), pp. 566-593.
[28] Kelley, Allen C., Williamson, Jeffrey G. and Cheatham, Russell J. Dualistic Economic Development: Theory and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972.
[29] Kogel, Tomas and Prskawetz, Alexia. “Agricultural Productivity Growth and Escape from the Malthusian Trap.” Journal of Economic Growth, 2001, 6, pp. 337-357.
[30] Kongsamut, Piyabha, Rebelo, Sergio and Xie, Danyang. “Beyond Balanced Growth.” Review of Economic Studies, October 2001, 68 (4), pp. 869-82.
[31] Kremer, Michael. “Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B. C. to 1990.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1993, 108 (3), pp. 681-716.
[32] Laitner, John. “Structural Change and Economic Growth.” Review of Economic Studies, 2000, 67, pp. 545-561.
[33] Lucas, Robert. E. Jr. “The Industrial Revolution: Past and Future.” In Lectures on Economic Growth, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002, pp. 109-188.
[34] Lucas, Robert. E. Jr. “Trade and the Diffusion of Industrial Revolution.” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2009, 1(1). pp.1-26.
[35] Maddison, Angus. The World Economy: A Millennia Perspective. Paris: OECD Press. [36] Manuelli, Roddy.and Seshadri, Ananth. “Frictionless Technology Diffusion: The Case
of Tractors.” NBER Working Paper, 2003, No. 9604.
[37] Matsuyama, Kiminori. “Agricultural Productivity, Comparative Advantage, and Eco- nomic Growth.” Journal of Economic Theory, 1992, 58, pp. 317-334.
[38] Mitchell, Brian R. Abstract of British Historical Statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1962.
[39] Mitchell, Brian R. British Historical Statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
[40] Mokyr, Joel. The Level of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
[41] Ngai, Rachel. “Barriers and the Transition to Modern Growth.” Journal of Monetary Economics, October 2004, 51 (7), pp.1353-1383.
[42] Ngai, Rachel and Pissarides, Christopher. “Structural Change in a Multisector Model of Growth.” American Economic Review, 2007, 97 (1), pp. 429-443.
[43] Overton, Mark. Agricultural Revolution in England: The Transformation of the Agrar- ian Economy 1500-1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
[44] Restuccia, Diego, Yang, Dennis Tao and Zhu, Xiaodong. “Agriculture and Aggre- gate Productivity: A Quantitative Cross-Country Analysis.” Journal of Monetary Eco- nomics, 2008, 55 (2), pp. 234-250
[45] Schultz, Theodore W. Transforming Traditional Agriculture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964.
[46] Stokey, Nancy L. “A Quantitative Model of the British Industrial Revolution: 1780- 1850.” Carnegie-Rochester Series on Public Policy, 55, pp. 55-109.
[47] Timmer, Peter C. “The Agricultural Transformation,” in Hollis Chenery and T. N. Srinivasan, eds., Handbook of Development Economics, Vol.1, Part II, Chapter 8. New York: North-Holland, 1988, pp. 276-331.
[48] Walton, John R. “Mechanization in Agriculture: A Study of the Adoption Process.” In H. S. A. Fox and R. A. Butlin, eds., Change in the Countryside: Essays in Rural England 1500-1900, Institute of British Geographers Special Publication No.10, 1979. [49] Wang, Ping and Xie, Danyang. “Activation of A Modern Industry.” Journal of Devel-
opment Economics, 2004, 74(2), pp. 393-410.
[50] Wrigley, E. Anthony and Schofield, Roger S. The Population History of England 1541- 1871 : A Reconstruction. Suffolk, Britain: Edward Arnold Ltd., 1981.
[51] Wrigley, E. Anthony. Continuity, Chance and Change: The Character of the Industrial Revolution in England. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Real Relative Employment Real wage Real Farm Farm Food imports as per capita price share in agricultural land machines machines fraction of domestic Year GDP (Pn/Pa) agriculture labor rent n≥1 n≥2 production (%)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) 1700-9 0.80 2.14 0.55 1.01 0.62 0.00 0.00 -0.02 1710-9 0.79 1.89 0.54 0.95 0.64 0.00 0.00 -0.03 1720-9 0.83 1.83 0.53 0.97 0.69 0.00 0.00 -0.04 1730-9 0.93 1.91 0.52 1.13 0.73 0.00 0.00 -0.05 1740-9 0.85 1.95 0.52 1.10 0.67 0.00 0.00 -0.07 1750-9 0.86 1.77 0.53 1.01 0.77 0.00 0.00 -0.06 1760-9 0.84 1.83 0.49 0.98 0.75 0.00 0.00 -0.03 1770-9 0.85 1.59 0.47 0.92 0.75 0.00 0.00 -0.01 1780-9 0.82 1.71 0.44 0.97 0.74 0.00 0.00 0.01 1790-9 0.82 1.54 0.40 0.89 0.75 0.04 0.00 0.04 1800-9 0.84 1.29 0.37 0.81 0.75 0.07 0.00 0.06 1810-9 0.91 1.13 0.35 0.87 0.87 0.23 0.02 0.09 1820-9 1.00 1.00 0.33 1.00 1.00 0.42 0.07 0.11 1830-9 1.02 0.97 0.30 1.05 1.01 0.49 0.09 0.13 1840-9 1.06 0.96 0.26 1.11 1.08 0.75 0.29 0.15 1850-9 1.07 1.08 0.24 1.18 1.08 0.85 0.48 0.17 1860-9 1.08 1.03 0.21 1.18 1.11 0.91 0.62 0.24 1870-9 1.23 0.94 0.17 1.44 1.19 0.95 0.77 0.46 1880-9 1.40 0.90 0.15 1.69 1.24 0.98 0.85 0.56 1890-9 1.61 0.91 0.12 2.02 1.26 N.A. N.A. 0.66 1900-9 1.88 1.04 0.10 2.08 1.13 N.A. N.A. 0.76
Table 1: Historical Statistics of England: 1700-1909
Note: the figures in columns (1), (2), (4) and (5) are indices of the corresponding variables with their 1820-09 values normalized to one. Columns (6) and (7) report the computed probabilities of a farm adopting at least one and at least two agricultural machines, respectively, during individual decades. See Appendix B for details on how these time series were constructed.
A. Real per capita GDP 0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 1700 1720 1740 1760 1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 Inde x (1820= 1) B. Relative price 0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 1700 1720 1740 1760 1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 Year P n/ P a (1820=1)
Figure 1. Real Per Capita GDP and the Relative Price of Industrial and Agricultural Products in England, 1700-1909
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Chaff Machines 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 18800 10 20 30 40 50 60 Turnip Cutters 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 18800 10 20 30 40 50 60 Winnowing Machines Percent 0 10 20 30 40 Threshing Machines 0 10 20 30 40 Reaping Machines 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 18800 10 20 30 40 Mowing Machines 0 10 20 30 Haymaking Machines 0 10 20 30 Cake Crushers
Figure 2. Percentage of Farms Adopted Agricultural Machinery for Oxfordshire Regions in England: 5-year Moving Means
Note: Data 1 and 2 in the left middle panel are the computed probabilities of a farm adopting at least one and at least two agricultural machines, respectively, in individual decades.
Figure 3. Trends in Major Macroeconomic Variables in England: Data and Simulations with and without Trade, 1700-1909
A C D E F B 1700 1720 1740 1760 1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 P e r c api ta G D P ( 1 820= 1) 1700 1720 1740 1760 1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 R e la tiv e pr ic e ( 182 0= 1) 17001720 1740 17601780 1800 18201840 1860 1880 19000 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 P robabi lit y of A dopt ion ( % ) 1700 1720 1740 1760 1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 19000 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 E m pl oy m e n t S h a re i n A g ri c u ltur e ( % ) 1700 1720 1740 1760 1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 Year W age ( 1820 = 1 ) 1700 1720 1740 1760 1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 Year Land R e nt ( 1 8 20= 1) Data1 Data2 w /o w