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Agricultural Seasonalily and the Organization of Manufacturing in Early Industrial Economies: The Contrast Between England and the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Kenneth L. Sokoloff  and
David Dollar
Kenneth L. Sokoloff
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics at University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095; and Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research.
David Dollar
Affiliation:
Chief of the Macroeconomics and Growth Division, Policy Research Department, The World Bank, 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433.
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Abstract

The greater flexibility associated with workers being able to choose the time and circumstance of their work allowed cottage manufacture to compete with technically more productive manufactories by rendering it more effective at harnessing a part time or offpeak workforce whose opportunity cost was low. Not only did this mean that cottage manufacture was better suited to the employment of women and children, who preferred flexibility in their hours and place of work, but also that the greater seasonality of labor supply in England led that economy to rely more on cottage manufacturing than did the United States during early industrialization.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , June 1997 , pp. 288 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1997

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