The Location of the UK Cotton Textiles Industry in 1838: A Quantitative Analysis

We examine the geography of cotton textiles in Britain in 1838 to test claims about why the industry came to be so heavily concentrated in Lancashire. Our analysis considers both first and second nature aspects of geography including the availability of water power, humidity, coal prices, market acc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Journal of economic history Vol. 74; no. 4; pp. 1103 - 1139
Main Authors Crafts, Nicholas, Wolf, Nikolaus
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.12.2014
Subjects
19th century
Coal
Cotton
Cotton textiles
Economic conditions
Economic history
Employment
Engines
Fixed costs
Geography
Humidity
Industrial development
Industrial Revolution
Industrial sites
Market access
Mills
Productivity
Quantitative analysis
Steam power
Studies
Sunk costs
Textile industry
Textiles
Water supply
United Kingdom > UK
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Summary:We examine the geography of cotton textiles in Britain in 1838 to test claims about why the industry came to be so heavily concentrated in Lancashire. Our analysis considers both first and second nature aspects of geography including the availability of water power, humidity, coal prices, market access, and sunk costs. We show that some of these characteristics have substantial explanatory power. Moreover, we exploit the change from water to steam power to show that the persistent effect of first nature characteristics on industry location can be explained by a combination of sunk costs and agglomeration effects.
ISSN:0022-0507
1471-6372
DOI:10.1017/S0022050714000874