The high wage economy and the industrial revolution: a restatement

This article responds to Humphries's critique of Allen's assessment of the high wage economy of eighteenth-century Britain and its importance for explaining the industrial revolution. New evidence is presented to show that women and children participated in the high wage economy. It is als...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Economic history review Vol. 68; no. 1; pp. 1 - 22
Main Author Allen, Robert C.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.02.2015
John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Subjects
18th century
19th century
Economic history
Economic theory
Evaluation
Industrial Revolution
Inequality
Poverty
Profitability
Spinning
Studies
Wage behaviour
Wages & salaries
United Kingdom > UK
England
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:This article responds to Humphries's critique of Allen's assessment of the high wage economy of eighteenth-century Britain and its importance for explaining the industrial revolution. New evidence is presented to show that women and children participated in the high wage economy. It is also shown that the high wage economy provides a good explanation of why the industrial revolution happened in the eighteenth century by showing that increases of women's wages around 1700 greatly increased the profitability of using spinning machinery. The relationship between the high wage economy of the eighteenth century and the inequality and poverty in Britain in the nineteenth century is explored.
Bibliography:ArticleID:EHR12079
For helpful comments and discussion, I would like to thank the participants at the workshop on 'The global and long-term development of real wages: methods, problems and possibilities' (Amsterdam, 2012) as well as the following individuals: Patrick O'Brien, Eric Schneider, Ian Gazeley, Pim de Zwart, Jan-Luiten van Zanden, Jacob Weisdorf, Angus Deaton, Branko Milanović, Jaime Reis, and Leandro Prados de la Escosura. Remaining difficulties are my responsibility.
ark:/67375/WNG-NTCJWWRT-F
istex:B7F8FBDC028270C9DB75DB184F115BF30C57A31E
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0013-0117
1468-0289
DOI:10.1111/ehr.12079