Productivity Growth during the British Industrial Revolution: Revisionism Revisited

Nicholas Crafts

CAGE Online Working Paper Series from Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE)

Abstract: This paper re-examines output and productivity growth during the British industrial revolution in the light of recent research. Revised estimates are presented which incorporate new findings on the structure of employment, in particular, that the level of industrialization in the mid-18th century is now known to be considerably higher than was assumed in earlier work. This implies that industrial labour productivity growth was faster than believed by authors of the 1980s but still slower than earlier writers claimed. It is shown that in most important respects the Crafts-Harley view of macroeconomic growth remains basically intact.

Keywords: industrial revolution; productivity growth; take-off (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-gro, nep-his and nep-tid
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cge:wacage:204

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