British Industrial Research Articles

Occupational Choice and the Spirit of Capitalism

The British Industrial Revolution triggered a reversal in the social order of society whereby the landed elite was replaced by industrial capitalists rising from the middle classes as the economically dominant group. Many observers have linked this transformation to the contrast in values between a hard-working and frugal middle class and an upper class imbued with disdain for work. We propose an economic theory of preference formation where both the divergence of attitudes across social classes and the ensuing reversal of economic fortunes are equilibrium outcomes. In our theory, parents shape their children's preferences in response to economic incentives. This results in the stratification of society along occupational lines. Middle-class families in occupations that require effort, skill, and experience develop patience and work ethics, whereas upper-class families relying on rental income cultivate a refined taste for leisure. These class-specific attitudes, which are rooted in the nature of pre-industrial professions, become key determinants of success once industrialization transforms the economic landscape.

Why England? Demographic factors, structural change and physical capital accumulation during the Industrial Revolution

Why did England industrialize first? And why was Europe ahead of the rest of the world? Unified growth theory in the tradition of Galor and Weil (2000, American Economic Review, 89, 806–828) and Galor and Moav (2002, Quartely Journal of Economics, 177(4), 1133–1191) captures the key features of the transition from stagnation to growth over time. Yet we know remarkably little about why industrialization occurred much earlier in some parts of the world than in others. To answer this question, we present a probabilistic two-sector model where the initial escape from Malthusian constraints depends on the demographic regime, capital deepening and the use of more differentiated capital equipment. Weather-induced shocks to agricultural productivity cause changes in prices and quantities, and affect wages. In a standard model with capital externalities, these fluctuations interact with the demographic regime and affect the speed of growth. Our model is calibrated to match the main characteristics of the English economy in 1700 and the observed transition until 1850. We capture one of the key features of the British Industrial Revolution emphasized by economic historians — slow growth of output and productivity. Fertility limitation is responsible for higher per capita incomes, and these in turn increase industrialization probabilities. The paper also explores the availability of nutrition for poorer segments of society. We examine the influence of redistributive institutions such as the Old Poor Law, and find they were not decisive in fostering industrialization. Simulations using parameter values for other countries show that Britain’s early escape was only partly due to chance. France could have moved out of agriculture and into manufacturing faster than Britain, but the probability was less than 25%. Contrary to recent claims in the literature, 18th century China had only a minimal chance to escape from Malthusian constraints.

Why England? Demographic Factors, Structural Change and Physical Capital Accumulation During the Industrial Revolution

Why did England industrialize first? And why was Europe ahead of the rest of the world? Unified growth theory in the tradition of Galor-Weil (2000) and Galor-Moav (2002) captures the key features of the transition from stagnation to growth over time. Yet we know remarkably little about why industrialization occurred so much earlier in some parts of the world than in others. To answer this question, we present a probabilistic two-sector model where the initial escape from Malthusian constraints depends on the demographic regime, capital deepening and the use of more differentiated capital equipment. Weather-induced shocks to agricultural productivity cause changes in prices and quantities, and affect wages. In a standard model with capital externalities, these fluctuations interact with the demographic regime and affect the speed of growth. Our model is calibrated to match the main characteristics of the English economy in 1700 and the observed transition until 1850. We capture one of the key features of the British Industrial Revolution emphasized by economic historians -- slow growth of output and productivity. Fertility limitation is responsible for higher per capita incomes, and these in turn increase industrialization probabilities. The paper also explores the availability of nutrition for poorer segments of society. We examine the influence of redistributive institutions such as the Old Poor Law, and find they were not decisive in fostering industrialization. Simulations using parameter values for other countries show that Britain's early escape was only partly due to chance. France could have moved out of agriculture and into manufacturing faster than Britain, but the probability was less than 30 percent. Contrary to recent claims in the literature, 18th century China had only a minimal chance to escape from Malthusian constraints.

Patenting, intellectual property rights and sectoral outputs in Industrial Revolution Britain, 1780–1851

Patenting rose sharply during the British Industrial Revolution. Utilizing time series methods, we investigate the causal relationships between 16 industries and patented inventions. The results show that increased patenting was essentially a consequence of fast growth in the cotton, iron, and mining sectors, which increased the value of protecting intellectual property. Conversely, protecting intellectual property was not a cause of the Industrial Revolution.

The Pitfalls of Prosopography: Inventors in the Dictionary of National Biography

The Pitfalls of Prosopography Inventors in the Dictionary of National Biography Christine MacLeod Alessandro Nuvolari Abstract This article investigates the representation in the Dictionary of National Biography (1885–1900) of inventors and inventive activities during the British industrial revolution. We analyse a data-set of all individuals born in the period 1650–1850 whose entry credits them with at least one invention, in order to interrogate the late Victorians' concept of invention and its influence on successive narratives of the British industrial revolution. Our study suggests that the DNB's selection of inventors reflected various Victorian biases and preconceptions about the role of technology in the transformation of contemporary society. Consequently, the use of collective biographies as a source for the history of technology is open to several methodological pitfalls, of which historians need to be aware. The Dictionary of National Biography was a triumph of Victorian literary engineering and private enterprise. Its original sixty-three volumes contained 29,120 entries. 1 They were produced in "eighteen years of unremitting labour" between 1882 and 1900, and published at the formidable rate of one volume every three months (precisely). 2 The Dictionary (henceforward DNB, as it is affectionately known in Britain) was intended to provide "full, accurate, and concise biographies of all noteworthy inhabitants of the British Islands and the Colonies (exclusive of living persons) from the earliest historical period to the present time." 3 [End Page 757] In order to investigate the representation in the DNB of inventors and inventive activities during the British Industrial Revolution, we have constructed a data-set of all individuals born during the period 1650–1850 whose entry credits them with at least one invention. These individuals number 383 and account for slightly more than 1 percent of all original entries. 4 If this seems a small proportion, we need to remember the inclusiveness of the enterprise and "the rich tapestry of British history" that the DNB represented. 5 It was the editors' goal to include all those who had achieved distinction in "any walk of life"; their list of examples mentioned "inventor" sixth, after "statesman, lawyer, divine, painter, author." 6 Certainly, if the DNB had been compiled a century earlier, the representation of inventors (as well as engineers and scientists) would have been negli-gible. The high regard in which inventors and engineers were held in Victorian Britain was a novel phenomenon that peaked during the second half of the nineteenth century. The men who selected the entries for the original DNB grew up in a society that celebrated the achievements of the inventor and the engineer in literature, museums, and public art as never before or since. 7 The second half of the nineteenth century began with the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace and ended with the unprecedented elevation to the peerage of such inventors and engineers as Joseph (Baron) Lister, Samuel Cunliffe Lister (who took the title Baron Masham), William (Baron) Armstrong, and William Thomson (Baron Kelvin). It witnessed the erection of statues in city centers and major public buildings to men such as these and other inventors, and saw the opening in South Kensington of the Patent Office Museum (later part of the Science Museum), which attracted 4.5 million visitors between 1855 and 1878. 8 The period was [End Page 758] awash with biographical studies, of which those produced by Samuel Smiles represented only the tip of a publishing iceberg. The aim of this article is to scrutinize the criteria adopted by the Victorian edition of the DNB when selecting British inventors born during the period 1650–1850. 9 We work with this first edition in order to interrogate the late Victorians' conceptualization of invention and its influence on successive narratives of the British Industrial Revolution. Simultaneously, we seek to raise methodological issues about the selection of historical sources for prosopographical studies. This is a timely exercise for two reasons. First, the new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), while...

Capitalist accountability and the British Industrial Revolution: The Carron Company, 1759–circa. 1850

The paper argues that accounting historians can help us to understand the origins of the British Industrial Revolution (BIR) by explaining the contribution of accounting to financial success. It re-examines the archive of the Carron Company (hereafter, ‘Carron’) from its formation in 1759 to around 1850 to explore the theory derived from Marx that class conflict, the capitalist mentality, its social relations of production, and accounts, drove the BIR. It shows that, contrary to the currently accepted view that Carron’s early financial accounts were a ‘shambles’, its partners used integrated financial and management accounts based on double entry bookkeeping to impose capitalist accountability on their managers and workers. The paper argues that zealous accounting was critical to Carron’s financial success because accountability for capital drove organisational and technical innovation and it underlay the partners’ early social solidarity. Carron’s partners worked collectively during the company’s difficult formative period up to the 1780s, using accounts to hold the managing partner and his subordinates accountable to them for the circulation of capital and to conduct class war against their workers. From the 1790s, the managing partner exploited a weakness in Carron’s system of corporate governance to understate its profits to demoralise other partners into selling their shares to give him control, which he used to divert a disproportionate share of its accumulating wealth to him and his family. The paper concludes that Carron’s history supports the Marxist theory that accounts played an important role in fuelling the BIR by giving capitalists a technology for controlling production for profit, what Marx called controlling the ‘valorization process’, and for promoting the social cohesion of capital. It calls on accounting historians to test this theory by revisiting the archives of other leading BIR firms, so that we can construct a history of this pivotal shift in the trajectory of world economic development on solid empirical foundations.

The Making of Steam Power Technology: A Study of Technical Change during the British Industrial Revolution

Writing in 1845 Friedrich Engels (and with him many other informed contemporaries) had few hesitations in pointing out the driving forces of the epochal transformation he was witnessing:The history of the proletariat in England begins with the second half of the last century, with the invention of the steam engine and the machinery for working cotton. These inventions gave rise, as is well known to an industrial revolution, a revolution which altered the whole civil society; one, the historical importance of which is only now beginning to be recognized.

Patience Capital, Occupational Choice, and the Spirit of Capitalism

We model the decision problem of a parent who chooses an occupation and teaches patience to her children. The two choices are linked by a strategic complementarity: patient individuals choose occupations with a steep income profile; a steep income profile, in turn, leads to a strong incentive to invest in patience. In equilibrium, society becomes stratified along occupational lines. The most patient people are those in occupations requiring the most education and experience. The theory can account for the socio-economic transformation that characterized the British Industrial Revolution, when a new class of entrepreneurs rising from the middle classes and imbued with an ethics emphasizing patience and savings proved most capable of profiting from new economic opportunities, and eventually surpassed the pre-industrial elite.

Accounting for entrepreneurship: A knowledge-based view of the firm

Abstract The paper articulates a knowledge-based balance sheet with reference to the location of knowledge and the structure of accountability. This framework shows that there are several generic strategies open to entrepreneurs. Although always constrained by the general framework of the capitalist mentality, historically variant structures of accountability explain changes in the more detailed patterns of entrepreneurial behaviour. The paper briefly reviews the main areas of entrepreneurial theory and takes an integrative and analytical view of entrepreneurship, offering the possibility of reconciling divergent interpretations of entrepreneurial behaviour, according to the location of knowledge and other assets and the structure of accountability. From this, it goes on to develop and test a typology of entrepreneurship. Rather than accept the argument that the ‘knowledge-based economy’ is a new phenomenon, based on recent technical discoveries, the paper takes the view that knowledge distribution and accountability structures are perennial features in a capitalist economy. The main empirical focus of the paper is therefore the process of industrialisation, exemplified by the experiences of British entrepreneurs in the latter part of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. These examples illustrate how entrepreneurs were able to use knowledge to appropriate and accumulate wealth, both fraudulently and legally, as mediated by historically variant structures of accountability. The paper deals first with the generic business strategies of entrepreneurs and examples of opportunistic and fraudulent behaviour, then goes on to consider their attitudes towards networking and then their political lobbying stance. Conclusions argue that the analytical framework developed in the paper is well supported by historical evidence, showing that accounting theory can deepen our understanding of significant events, such as the British Industrial Revolution and offer useful commentary on other social phenomena, such as the role of entrepreneurs in ‘dynamic’ economies.

Reliability of point efficiency estimates in regulatory applications: evidence from the English and Welsh water industry

In this study, we have estimated a panel data Cobb-Douglas stochastic variable cost frontier to model the operating expenditure of the water-only companies in the English and Welsh water industry. The results are used to build confidence intervals for the point efficiency estimates. Our results show that, contrary to some previous studies in other sectors, the confidence intervals’ sizes are relatively small. Nonetheless, even in this case, grouping companies in efficiency bands on the basis of point efficiency estimates as Ofwat (Office of Water Services), the regulator of the English and Welsh water industry, does might lead to a one-band misclassification for 25% of the water-only companies. The computation of confidence intervals might, therefore, enhance the transparency and reliability of the whole comparative competition regime. This paper suggests that, especially when noise is large relative to inefficiency, confidence intervals should be routinely used alongside point estimates in regulatory applications.

The Economic Value of British Colonial Empire in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

This article reviews recent research on aspects of the long-standing debate among historians over the question of whether or not, on the whole, colonial expansion before 1800 contributed substantially to British economic development and industrialization. After narrowing the meaning of “colonial” to focus on coercion as its defining characteristic, we conclude that analyses based on the standard quantitative measures of economic development have not produced a clear consensus one way or the other. Research looking at the effects of colonialism on the institutional framework of economic change does, however, appear to support our own view that, from a structural standpoint, pre-1800 colonialism did indeed contribute significantly to economic change in Britain.

British Industrial Relations Paradigm: A Critical Outline History and Prognosis

This article reflects critically on the history of the British pluralist industrial relations (IR) paradigm, from its foundation by Flanders and Clegg at Oxford in the 1950s, through its development and consolidation in both public policy and academic circles. No sooner was the paradigm firmly established with the 1968 Donovan Report and 1970 foundation of the Industrial Relations Research Unit at Warwick University (among other markers), than it faced new challenges and, arguably breakdown. These challenges came, first, from 1970s New Left Marxism, riding on a tide of industrial and student unrest, and then from 1980s Thatcherism and the destruction of workplace industrial relations. The article concludes by outlining six main strengths of the British IR paradigm and looking forward to how IR can regain its relevance in the very different world of work that lies ahead.

The Long Nineteenth Century Is Too Short

In this forum, we invited Jan Nederveen Pieterse and Gauri Viswanathan to explore issues raised in: The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons, by C. A. Bayly; pp. xxiii + 540. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004, £18.99 paper; $34.95 paper. C. A. Bayly was then asked to respond. Christopher Bayly's book, broadly canvassed and richly textured, offers ample fine detail of less-known episodes and reasonably new angles on familiar episodes. It also presents us with some immediate problems. It is a long read that revisits the most studied period in all of evolution: the nineteenth century, the great period of European accomplishment and Eurocentric narcissism. It is reasonable to ask what else we need to know about this time. It is inauspicious that the book comes with an endorsement by Niall Ferguson who calls it "A masterpiece of distance-annihilating synthesis....At a stroke, all other general histories of the nineteenth century have become parochial." Coming from a historian who thinks the British Empire was a good idea and offers advice to Americans on how to run their empire better, one would think that for a new study of the nineteenth century this is a kiss of death. So despite the various endorsements from British sources that accompany it ("brilliant," "remarkable," "masterful") one enters this terrain with some foreboding. Bayly revisits the nineteenth century equipped with familiar insights from economic history, anthropology, and sociology. Benedict Anderson on print capitalism, Ernest Gellner, and Eric Hobsbawm on nationalism and the state, the dispute between David Landes and [End Page 113] Andre Gunder Frank on economic history, Arjun Appadurai on hybridity, Jürgen Habermas on the public sphere, all make appearances. Rather than industrial revolution Bayly posits industrious revolution or industrial evolution. This is what one would expect, the nineteenth century revisited in light of recent social science. Since this is history, not social science, it doesn't come with theoretical problematization but with historical problematization that measures ideas against historical sources and trends. Bayly's approach is multidimensional; he parts company with structural approaches such as world system theory and argues instead for an interactive account of political, economic, and cultural changes. This too is now common fare in social science. Fair enough. This is not the raison d'être for a new volume nor for the massive praise that accompanies it. What distinguishes Bayly's book is that it offers a global history account of the nineteenth century. The author cautions that "world history is no more than one among many ways of doing history," and yet he also notes "all historians are world historians now, though many have not yet realized it" (468, 469). This in itself is a paradoxical undertaking: why offer a global history account of precisely that period when Europe was center stage? Well, first, why not? A global history will be superior to a regional or parochial account. Yet, will not a global history merely confirm, in more roundabout ways, the cliché of European centrality and supremacy? Don't we already know the outcome—qualified Western supremacy— before the journey begins? The work comes with the tediously familiar maps of the nineteenth century world with the British ruled parts of the world colored in a different shade. What is the added value of Bayly's approach? Interesting parts of the study are the many vignettes in which Bayly maps global parallels and connections in geographies wide apart, for instance: "Jews attracted violence just as did the bania moneylenders of India in 1857 and the moneylending gentry in Taiping China" (157). The American Civil War was an episode similar to the unification of Italy and Germany and the Meiji revolution in Japan (163). Of interest too are the occasions when he notes causal flows that do not invariably go from the West outward, for instance: "British industrialization was a response to efficient artisan textile production in other parts...

The Exchequer of the Jews Revisited

The Jewish branch of the Great Exchequer of England was created some time during the last decade of the twelfth century during the reign of Richard I (1189–99). Jews arrived in England in significant numbers after 1066, invited by William the Conqueror to assist in the increase of English commerce and industry. They remained, as financiers, moneylenders and pawnbrokers, until expelled by Edward I in 1290. The article tells the story of the exchequer of the Jews, discussing its organisation, officials and effect on England's economy during the years of its operation.

Book Reviews

Population and Development ReviewVolume 31, Issue 2 p. 373-383 Book Reviews First published: 06 July 2005 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2005.00071.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Abstract Book reviewed in this article: Robert Neuwirth, Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World John Landers, The Field and the Forge: Population, Production, and Power in the Preindustrial West Jochen Fleischhacker, Henk A. de Gans, and Thomas K. Burch (eds.), Populations, Projections, and Politics: Critical and Historical Essays on Early Twentieth Century Population Forecasting Jean-Claude Chasteland, Michel Loriaux, and Louis Roussel (eds.), Démographie 2000: Une enquête internationale par Internet auprès des démographes References Almeida-Filho, N., I. Lessa, L. Magalhães, M. J. Araújo, E. Acquino, S. A. James, and I. Kawachi. 2004. “Social inequality and depressive disorders in Bahia, Brazil: Interactions of gender, ethnicity, and social class,”Social Science and Medicine 59 (7): 1339– 1353. Moreau, R. and S. Mazumdar. 2005. “ Bombay dreams,” Newsweek International, edition of 25 April. Parkar, S. R., J. Fernandes, and M. G. Weiss. 2003. “Contextualizing mental health: Gendered experiences in a Mumbai slum,”Anthropology and Medicine 10 (3): 291– 308. UN Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat). 2003. The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003. London : Earthscan. UN Millennium Project. 2005. A Home in the City. Task Force on Improving the Lives of Slum Dwellers. London : Earthscan. World Health Organization. 2001. The World Health Report 2001. Mental Health: New Understanding, New Hope. Geneva : World Health Organization. Allen, Robert C. 2005. “ Real wages in Europe and Asia: A first look at the long-term patterns,”in Robert C. Allen, Tommy Bengtsson, and Martin Dribe, (eds.), Living Standards in the Past: New Perspectives on Well-Being in Asia and Europe. Oxford : Oxford University Press, ch. 5. Clark, Gregory. 2002. “ The agricultural revolution? England 1500–1912,”unpublished ms., University of California, Davis . Goldstone, Jack A. 2002. “Efflorescences and economic growth in world history: Rethinking the ‘Rise of the West’ and the British Industrial Revolution,”Journal of World History 13: 323– 389. Volume31, Issue2June 2005Pages 373-383 ReferencesRelatedInformation

Social Class and the Spirit of Capitalism

The British Industrial Revolution was a time of major socio-economic transformations. We review a number of recent economic theories which analyze the transition from a preindustrial world characterized by high fertility, stationary standards of living, and rigid social hierarchies to modern capitalism. One of the key social transformations that accompanied the Industrial Revolution was the economic decline of the aristocracy. Standard theories of wealth inequality cannot explain why the aristocrats, in spite of their superior wealth and education, failed to be the main protagonists and beneficiaries of industrialization. We discuss recent research based on a model of endogenous preferences that is consistent with the demise of aristocracy.

Credit rationing and crowding out during the industrial revolution: evidence from Hoare’s Bank, 1702–1862

Crowding out during the British Industrial Revolution has long been one of the leading explanations for slow growth during the Industrial Revolution, but little empirical evidence exists to support it. We argue that examinations of interest rates are fundamentally misguided, and that the 18th- and early 19th-century private loan market balanced through quantity rationing. Using a unique set of observations on lending volume at a London goldsmith bank, Hoare’s Bank, we document the impact of wartime financing on private credit markets. We conclude that there is considerable evidence that government borrowing, especially during wartime, crowded out private credit.

The development of mail-coach services during the British Industrial Revolution

The development of mail-coach services during the British Industrial Revolution

Americanisation and the Discourse of Guilt in Germany, 1945–1955

Rather than originating in the post-1945 period, the Americanisation of the German language represents the post-war transformation of a gradual anglicisation of German which began in the 18th century with the expansion of English industry and trade. The influence of American English on German began after World War I, and intensified under the specific political and societal conditions prevailing in Germany after 1945. The Americanisation of the German language cannot therefore be reduced to the general phenomenon of westernisation that has affected all Eurasian countries (and national languages) since World War II. Rather, it is a development that has its roots in German–American relations of the decade between 1945 and 1955. This decade saw not only the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany, but also intensive debate among German intellectuals and the political elite about Germany's past, present and future, and about German guilt and identity. This article analyses the Americanisation of the German language as an aspect of this German guilt discourse and as an integral part of the (re-)establishment of German identity. Methodologically the article is related to a linguistically orientated history of mentalités.

Managerial Inefficiency and the British Climacteric, 1860-1914

This paper argues that a key reason for Britain's economic decline was the management culture of British industry, in particular the unwillingness of British entrepreneurs to decentralize decision-making within their firms, in comparison to their foreign counterparts. A theory of delegation is developed, and its importance to economic growth established. While it is difficult to directly measure how much authority is delegated within a firm, the paper describes how using this hypothesis, many observed characteristics of British industrial development can then be explained, most importantly the lesser ability of large British firms to generate innovations and maintain growth in all aspects of the firm. In support the paper analyzes the development of a number of industries, particularly the chemical and electrical engineering industries, and examines descriptions of British management practices by contemporaries and recent historians. Thus vigorous entrepreneurship is observed early in the life of many British industries, but as the industries matured and larger firms became appropriate and are developed in the US and Germany, British firms fell behind their counterparts in productivity and their ability to grow.