Is Anonymity the Missing Link Between Commercial and Industrial Revolution?

Stephen Broadberry, Sayantan Ghosal and Eugenio Proto
Additional contact information
Eugenio Proto: University of Glasgow

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

Abstract: The Industrial Revolution is often characterized as the culmination of a process of commercialisation; however, the precise nature of such a link remains unclear. This paper models and analyses one such link: the impact of a higher degree of anonymity of market transactions on relative factor prices. Commercialisation raises wages as impersonal labour market transactions replace personalized customary relations. This leads, in equilibrium, to higher real wages to prevent shirking. To the extent that capital and labor are (imperfect) substitutes, the resulting shift in relative factor prices leads to the adoption of a more capital-intensive production technology which, in turn, results in a faster rate of technological progress via enhanced learning by doing. We provide evidence using European historical data consistent our results.

Keywords: Commercialisation; Industrial Revolution; Anonymity; Efficiency; Wages; Learning by Doing. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/resear ... s/54.2011_ghosal.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: Is Anonymity the Missing Link Between Commercial and Industrial Revolution? (2011)
Working Paper: Is Anonymity the Missing Link Between Commercial and Industrial Revolution? (2011)
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:cge:wacage:54

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CAGE Online Working Paper Series from Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jane Snape ().