Roots of the Industrial Revolution

Morgan Kelly, Joel Mokyr and Cormac Ó Gráda

No 201524, Working Papers from School of Economics, University College Dublin

Abstract: We analyze factors explaining the very different patterns of industrialization across the 42 counties of England between 1760 and 1830. Against the widespread view that high wages and cheap coal drove industrialization, we find that industrialization was restricted to low wage areas, while energy availability (coal or water) had little impact Instead we find that industrialization can largely be explained by two factors related to the human capability of the labour force. Instead of being composed of landless labourers, successful industrializers had large numbers of small farms, which are associated with better nutrition and height. Secondly, industrializing counties had a high density of population relative to agricultural land, indicating extensive rural industrial activity: counties that were already reliant on small scale industry, with the technical and entrepreneurial skills this generated, experienced the strongest industrial growth. Looking at 1830s France we find that the strongest predictor of industrialization again is quality of workers shown by height of the population, although market access and availability of water power were also important.

Keywords: Industrial revolution; Economic history; Economic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N N13 O52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2015-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-gro and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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