Establishment Size and Economies of Scale in 19th-Century France

Abstract

This paper, which uses micro data from the two mid-century French industrial censuses, offers two main conclusions about the structure of French industry. First, it shows that while average firm size was small in French manufacturing as a whole, cotton textile factories were not much smaller than their British or American counterparts. Second, it shows that there is evidence of increasing returns to scale in France, especially in small-scale traditional sectors. It seems that the average size in these sectors in France during the second half of the century remained small, while it increased elsewhere. Thus, some potential economies of scale were not exploited.