Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-956mj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-24T13:20:33.441Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Structural Change and Economic Growth in the British Economy before the Industrial Revolution, 1500–1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2018

Patrick Wallis ,
Justin Colson  and
David Chilosi
Patrick Wallis
Affiliation:
Professor, LSE - Economic History, Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. E-mail: [email protected]
Justin Colson
Affiliation:
Lecturer, University of Essex - Department of History, Colchester, Essex, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. E-mail: [email protected]
David Chilosi
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, University of Groningen - Department of Economics, Econometrics and Finance, Nettelbosje 2, 9747 AE, Groningen, Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Structural transformation is a key indicator of economic development. We present the first time series of male labor sectoral shares for England and Wales before 1800, using a large sample of probate and apprenticeship data to produce national- and county-level estimates. England experienced a rapid decline in the share of workers in agriculture between the early seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, associated with rising agricultural and especially industrial productivity; Wales saw few changes. Our results show that England experienced unusually early structural change and highlight the mid-seventeenth century as a turning point.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 78 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 862 - 903
Copyright
© 2018 The Economic History Association. All rights reserved. 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The Wellcome Trust funded part of the research underlying this paper (grant “The Medical World in Early Modern England, Wales and Ireland c.1500–1715”). Parts of the data were generously shared by Cliff Webb, Michael Scott, Mark Merry, and the Centre for Metropolitan History. The PST codes were generously shared by Leigh Shaw-Taylor and the CAMPOP group. We also made use of data provided by the Historic County Borders Project (http://www.county-borders.co.uk). Maureen Wallis generously assisted us with classifying occupations. Liam Brundt, Steve Broadberry, Greg Clark, Giovanni Federico, Chris Minns, Patrick O’Brien, two anonymous referees, and audiences at Tsinghua University, Copenhagen University, and the Economic History Society offered incisive criticisms and suggestions that have much improved this paper.

References

Alexander, James. “The Economic Structure of the City of London at the End of the Seventeenth Century.” Urban History Yearbook (1989): 47–62.Google Scholar
Allen, Robert C. “Economic Structure and Agricultural Productivity in Europe, 1300–1800.” European Review of Economic History 4, no. 1 (2000): 1–25.Google Scholar
Allen, Robert C. “The Great Divergence in European Prices and Wages from the Middle Ages to the First World War.” Explorations in Economic History 38, no. 4 (2001): 411–447.Google Scholar
Allen, Robert C. “Agriculture During the Industrial Revolution, 1700–1850.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, Volume 1: Industrialisation 1700–1861, edited by Roderick Floud and Paul Johnson, 96–115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Allen, Robert C. “English and Welsh Agriculture, 1350–1800: Output, Inputs, and Income.” Mimeo, 2005.Google Scholar
Beier, A. L. “Engine of Manufacture: The Trades of London.” In The Making of the Metropolis: Essays in the Social and Economic History of London, 1500–1700, edited by A. L. Beier and Roger Finlay, 141–167. London: Longman, 1986.Google Scholar
Britnell, Richard. The Commercialisation of English Society, 1000–1500. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Broadberry, Stephen, Campbell, Bruce M. S., Klein, Alexander, et al. British Economic Growth, 1270–1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Broadberry, Stephen, Campbell, Bruce M. S., and , Bas van Leeuwen. “When Did Britain Industrialise? The Sectoral Distribution of the Labor Force and Labor Productivity in Britain, 1381–1851.” Explorations in Economic History 50, no. 1 (2013): 16–27.Google Scholar
Broadberry, Stephen. “Accounting for the Great Divergence.” LSE Economic History Working Paper No. 184/2013, London School of Economics, London, UK, 2013.Google Scholar
Burn, Andy. “Wage Labour, Wealth and the Power of a Database: Unlocking Communities of Work Outside Urban Guilds in Newcastle upon Tyne.” In Cities and Solidarities: Urban Communities in Pre–Modern Europe, edited by Justin Colson and Arie van Steensel, 169–187. Abingdon: Routledge, 2017.Google Scholar
Campbell, Bruce M. S. English Seigniorial Agriculture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Chilosi, David, Murphy, Tommy E., Studer, Roman, et al. “Europe’s Many Integrations: Geography and Grain Markets, 1620–1913.” Explorations in Economic History 50, no. 1 (2013): 46–68.Google Scholar
Clark, Gregory. “The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1209–2004.” Journal of Political Economy 113, no. 6 (2005): 1307–1340.Google Scholar
Clark, Gregory. A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007a.Google Scholar
Clark, Gregory. “The Long March of History: Farm Wages, Population and Economic Growth, England, 1209–1869.” Economic History Review 60, no. 1 (2007b): 97–135.Google Scholar
Clark, Gregory. “1381 and the Malthus Delusion.” Explorations in Economic History 50, no. 1 (2013): 4–15.Google Scholar
Clark, Gregory. “Markets before Economic Growth: The Grain Market in Medieval England.” Cliometrica 9, no. 3 (2015): 265–287.Google Scholar
Clark, Gregory, Huberman, Michael, and Lindert, Peter H.. “A British Food Puzzle, 1770–1850.” Economic History Review 48, no. 2 (1995): 215–237.Google Scholar
Clark, Gregory, Cummins, Joseph, and Smith, Brock. “Malthus, Wages, and Preindustrial Growth.” Journal of Economic History 72, no. 2 (2012): 364–392.Google Scholar
Crafts, Nicholas F. R. “Patterns of Development in Nineteenth Century Europe.” Oxford Economic Papers 36, no. 3 (1984): 438–458.Google Scholar
Crafts, Nicholas F. R. British Economic Growth During the Industrial Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.Google Scholar
De Vries, Jan. The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Deane, Phyllis, and Cole, W. A.. British Economic Growth, 1688–1959. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962.Google Scholar
Federico, Giovanni. “The Holy Grail of Economic History: Long-Run Economic Growth and the Industrial Revolution in Britain.” Rivista di Storia Economica 32, no. 1 (2016): 119–133.Google Scholar
Field, Jacob F. “Domestic Service, Gender, and Wages in Rural England, C.1700–1860.” Economic History Review 66, no. 1 (2013): 249–272.Google Scholar
Fisher, Frederick J. “Commercial Trends and Policies in Sixteenth-Century England.” Economic History Review 10, no. 2 (1940): 95–117.Google Scholar
Floud, Roderick, Fogel, Robert W., Harris, Bernard, et al. The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition, and Human Development in the Western World since 1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Goose, Nigel, and Evans, Nesta. “Wills as an Historical Source.” In When Death Do Us Part: Understanding and Interpreting the Probate Records of Early Modern England, edited by Tom Arkell, Nesta Evans, and Nigel Goose, 38–72. Oxford: Leopard’s Head Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Groth, Christian, and Persson, Karl Gunnar. “Growth or Stagnation in Pre-Industrial Britain? A Revealed Income Growth Approach.” CAGE ESRC Working Paper No. 264, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK, 2016.Google Scholar
Harding, Vanessa. “The Population of London, 1500–1700: A Review of the Published Evidence.” London Journal 14, no. 2 (1990): 111–128.Google Scholar
Humphries, Jane, and Weisdorf, Jacob. “Unreal Wages? A New Empirical Foundation for the Study of Living Standards and Economic Growth in England, 1260–1860.” CAGE ESRC Working Paper No. 310, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK, 2016.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Geraint H. The Foundations of Modern Wales: Wales 1642–1780. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Keibek, Sebastian A. J. “Using Probate Data for Estimating Historical Male Occupational Structures.” University of Cambridge Occupations Project Paper 27. Cambridge: Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, 2016a.Google Scholar
Keibek, Sebastian A. J. “From Probate Inventories to Households: Correcting the Probate Record for Wealth Bias.” Occupations Project Paper 29. Cambridge: Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, 2016b.Google Scholar
Keibek, Sebastian A. J. “By-Employments and Occupational Structure in Pre-industrial England.” Occupations Project Paper 30. Cambridge: Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, 2016c.Google Scholar
Keibek, Sebastian A. J. The Development of the Male Occupational Structure of England and Wales between 1600 and 1850. Paper presented at the Institute of Historical Research, London, on 11 November 2016d.Google Scholar
Keibek, Sebastian A. J., and Shaw-Taylor, Leigh. “Early Modern Rural by-Employments: A Re-Examination of the Probate Inventory Evidence.” Agricultural History Review 61, no. 2 (2013): 244–281.Google Scholar
Klemp, Marc, Minns, Chris, Wallis, Patrick & Weisdorf, Jacob, “Picking Winners? The Effect of Birth Order and Migration on Parental Human Capital Investments in Pre-Modern England.” European Review of Economic History 17, no. 2 (2013): 210–232.Google Scholar
Kussmaul, Ann S. Servants in Husbandry in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Langton, John. “Urban Growth and Economic Change: From the Late Seventeenth Century to 1841.” In The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, Vol. 2: 1540–1840, edited by Peter Clark, 451–490. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Leunig, Tim, Minns, Chris, and Wallis, Patrick. “Networks in the Premodern Economy: The Market for London Apprenticeship, 1600–1749.” Journal of Economic History 71, no. 2 (2011): 413–443.Google Scholar
Lindert, Peter H. “An Algorithm for Probate Sampling.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 11, no. 4 (1981): 649–668.Google Scholar
Lindert, Peter H., and Williamson, Jeffrey G.. “Revising England’s Social Tables 1688–1812.” Explorations in Economic History 19, no. 4 (1982): 385–408.Google Scholar
Lowe, Norman. The Lancashire Textile Industry in the Sixteenth Century. Manchester: Chetham Society, 1972.Google Scholar
Milanovic, Branko, Lindert, Peter H., and Williamson, Jeffrey G.. “Pre-Industrial Inequality.” Economic Journal 121, no. 551 (2011): 255–272.Google Scholar
Minns, Chris, and Wallis, Patrick. “The Price of Human Capital in a Pre-Industrial Economy: Premiums and Apprenticeship Contracts in 18th Century England.” Explorations in Economic History 50, no. 3 (2013): 335–350.Google Scholar
Minns, Chris, and Wallis, Patrick. “Rules and Reality: Quantifying the Practice of Apprenticeship in Early Modern England.” Economic History Review 65, no. 2 (2012): 556–579.Google Scholar
Munro, John H. “Entrepreneurship in Early Modern Europe (1450–1750): An Exploration of Some Unfashionable Themes in Economic History.” Mimeo, 2007.Google Scholar
Nuvolari, Alessandro, and Ricci, Mattia. “Economic Growth in England, 1250–1850: Some New Estimates Using a Demand Side Approach.” Rivista di Storia Economica 29, no. 1 (2013): 31–54.Google Scholar
Owen, Leonard. “The Population of Wales in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1959): 99–113.Google Scholar
Palma, Nuno. “Money and Modernization: Liquidity, Specialization and Structural Change in Early Modern England.” EUI Max Weber Programme Working Papers No. 2016/11, European University Institute, Fiesole FI, Italy, 2016.Google Scholar
Papke, Leslie E., and Wooldridge, Jeffrey M.. “Econometric Methods for Fractional Response Variables with an Application to 401(K) Plan Participation Rates.” Journal of Applied Econometrics 11, no. 6 (1996): 619–632.Google Scholar
Powell, Nia. “Urban Population in Early Modern Wales Revisited.” The Welsh History Review 23, no. 3 (2007): 1–43.Google Scholar
Rodgers, N.A.M. The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649–1815. London: Penguin, 2004.Google Scholar
Shaw-Taylor, Leigh, Wrigley, Anthony E., Kitson, Peter M., et al. “The Occupational Structure of England, c. 1710–1871.” Occupations Project Paper 22. Cambridge: Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, 2010.Google Scholar
Schwarz, Leonard D. London in the Age of Industrialisation: Entrepreneurs, Labor Force and Living Conditions, 1700–1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Stephenson, Judy Z. “‘Real’ Wages? Contractors, Workers and Pay in London Building Trades, 1650–1800.” Economic History Review 71, no. 1 (2018): 106–132.Google Scholar
Supple, Barry E. Commercial Crisis and Change in England, 1600–1642: A Study in the Instability of a Mercantile Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959.Google Scholar
Williams, Glanmor. Renewal and Reformation: Wales C.1415–1642. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Wrigley, E. Anthony. “Urban Growth and Agricultural Change: England and the Continent in the Early Modern Period.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 15, no. 4 (1985): 638–728.Google Scholar
Wrigley, E. Anthony. Poverty, Progress, and Population. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Wrigley, E. Anthony. “English County Populations in the Later Eighteenth Century.” Economic History Review 60, no. 1 (2007): 35–69.Google Scholar
Wrigley, E. Anthony. “Rickman Revisited: The Population Growth Rates of English Counties in the Early Modern Period1.” Economic History Review 62, no. 3 (2009): 711–735.Google Scholar
Wrigley, E. Anthony, Davies, Ros S., Oeppen, Jim E., et al. English Population History from Family Reconstitution 1580–1837. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Zell, Michael L. “The Social Parameters of Probate Records in the Sixteenth Century.” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 57, no. 135 (1984): 107–113.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Wallis et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix S1

Download Wallis et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 644.5 KB
Supplementary material: PDF

Wallis et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix S2

Download Wallis et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 645.3 KB
Supplementary material: PDF

Wallis et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix S3

Download Wallis et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 684.3 KB