Entrepreneurship in Scotland, 1851–1911

Harry Smith, Robert Bennett, Carry Van Lieshout and Piero Montebruno

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This article uses the British Business Census of Entrepreneurs (BBCE) to examine the history of entrepreneurship in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Scotland. The BBCE identifies every business proprietor listed in the 1851–1901 Scottish censuses, correcting for non-response issues. The BBCE, therefore, allows the whole population of Scottish entrepreneurs to be examined for the first time. These data are combined with a reweighted version of the 1911 Scottish Census report to allow the trends in entrepreneurial numbers and rates to be examined as a whole and broken down by sector and gender. The article also shows how entrepreneurship varied by location. This article offers support for previous work on Scottish entrepreneurship, notably stressing the continued importance of small-scale businesses. It also reveals that female entrepreneurship rates were far higher than previously thought. This article lays the groundwork for future studies of Scottish entrepreneurship using the BBCE data.

Keywords: entrepreneurship; census; economic history; 19th century; self-employed; gender; ESRCsupported project ES/M010953 Drivers of Entrepreneurship and Small Businesses to include Scotland in the British Business Census of Entrepreneurs (BBCE); with additional support from Isaac Newton Trust Grant; 18.40(g) ‘Business proprietor succession and firm size change 1851-1881’; ES/M010953/1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2021-05-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-sbm
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, 1, May, 2021, 41(1), pp. 38-64. ISSN: 1748-538X

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/113865/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:113865

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().