Event Key points Key facts Authors and arguments
The Great - Intensive/Smithian growth - Black death: doubling or urban - California school: pre-industrial China + England
Divergence - Breaking of Malthusian trap wages similar
- Agro-neolithic transition: timing important - Coal: England biggest user by - Marx: other countries couldn’t adapt to
- Endowment of coal important – but incentives 1700 capitalism as fast
more important to utilise it - Education: by 1700 over ¼ men - Pomeranz (California): luck with location of coal
England over 21 had completed an relative to industry – Chinese coal NW, fast from
- Population: low pressure, low life expectancy, apprenticeship industry + unprofitable to transport
small families, less vulnerability, more incentive to - Scientific enlightenment: - Californians: critical technology approach –
invest – underpopulated increased number of published relation to coal, tech breakthroughs, only due to
- Black death: decline in output less than in books in previous 200 years abundance/cost
population – labour saving tech change - Incentives: prestige and - Allen: relative high cost of wages/low cost of
- Education: apprenticeships, high skilled workers, patronage to best inventors coal – innovation + labour saving technology
institutionalisation of science through universities - Mokyr: level of human capital/scientific
- Institutions: low interest rates + property rights, knowledge applied to industry reason for high
patents growth
- Coal: energy source, steam engine, - Weber: protestant reformation (culture)
industrialisation, England cheap and abundant, CA - Court – not inevitable, black death, geography
in manufactured goods, trade, increased incomes etc
China
- population: high pressure, large families for rice
growing, cant break Malthusian trap as vulnerable
to famines etc – overpopulated
- innovation: rigid insitutions that didn’t reward
innovation
-
Industrial Agricultural revolution - English ate 5x amount of meat - Allen: labour saving tech from high wages,
revolution - late medieval Europe labour saving machinery, as France higher wages = higher productivity
crop rotations etc, Henry viii enclosure acts - 5 English men (taller, stronger) = - Humphries and Schneider: dispute Allen’s wage
(privatisation acts) - increases crop yields relative 7 French data (revolution from female cotton workers,
to other countries - Wages 83% higher in LDN than larger sample)
Bourgeois values PRS for building craftsmen (due - Stephenson: disputes Allen (his wage data is
- justice (contracts), temperance (saving), courage to productivity, not costs) actually contractors charge out rates – 1/3 is
, (entrepreneurship), prudence (self-interest), faith - 65-75% productivity difference costs – overheads ect)
(community), hope (hard work, future), love between England and France - Mokyr: human capital, physical condition of
(McKloskey) - 1300 italy income 2x GB: GB British workers, better nutrition = better
govt massively poor in Europe cognitive power. Allen’s wage data based on
- stocking frame: (replace knitting) denied by cotton industry atypical
Elizabeth I (1590) - argues it will lead to poor -
being unemployed
- Huguenots (Protestants) flee France when it
becomes catholic again, bring tech to England,
change in attitude
- took side of industrialists against workers,
established agri interests
- Luddites 1811: riots against new stocking mill
(deskilled work, lower pay), govt sends army, 17
people hung in 1813 for breaking machinery)
- 1846 repeal of corn laws: import restrictions since
1670, harms factories, good for land owners
- 1707 turnpike roads: allow tolls, roads
maintained, highest number of good quality
roads, enables trade
- Poor law: early welfare state, feeding orphans,
making them work. Reduced population growth +
rural unrest
People
- Industrious revolution: extensive growth (people
work longer) – less Catholic holidays etc
- 5 English men (taller, stronger) = 7 French
- Later marriage + women working
- Willing to invest in skills (apprenticeships)
- GB less infant mortality, more investment from a
younger age as more likely to live
Wages
- Wages for skilled workers lower than everywhere
, else – factories profitable
- W Europe livestock exchange = specialisation,
easier to transport than grain, better diets. High
value added industry = employment
Slavery
- Marx argues it garunteed development
- BUT Sugar needs slavery, cotton doesnt... British
cotton exported to non-slave areas (North
America + Portugal), so slavery didnt create
demand/create all supply
- BUT trading = profits, invested in revolution +
peace on high seas (navy protection of slave
trade), essential for slave trade pre 1807
Why growth Bad luck India Marx view that Indian soc had to be destroyed, British
doesn’t spread - Geography, resource endowments, mountains, - American theories don’t stand regenerative role
temperature, size, soil, disease - E.g. AMS: India didn’t need to
America – why is the North richer attract migrants
- North & Weingast: British institutions better, pro History
growth, secure property rights, and limited by - EIC win battle of Palashi 1757
effected govt - Spanish and Portuguese didnt - and rule for 100 yrs
North grows faster than South - GB take over EIC and rule (the
- BUT British Caribbean poor Raj)
- Acemoglu, Johnson & Robinson: climate Good
determines in conquers settle, care about - Clear property rights: colour-
institutions and long term future – geo important blind, dont favour white people
- Engerman & Sokoloff: sugar worse than wheat, - Eliminated slavery and serfdom
growing sugar leads to inequality, susceptible to - Built lots of railways
slave labour, bad productivity, rent seeking rulers, - Low tax: <3% GDP
poor school provision, low human capital - Access to machinery and
formation, low growth. Wheat grown by free expertise
workers, farm owners, care for education as want BUT: UK Raj indifferent to: Indian
children to run farm in future - different entrepreneurs, famine, not a
incentives development state, local welfare
, - BUT: not proven
- Allen, Murphy, Schnieder: to attract migrants, Agri/industry
British North America need to offer high British - Industry does better but agri
wages, Spanish & Portuguese south need to offer bigger
low Iberian wages. North America had to have - Wheat/rice yields same in 1910
high productivity to attract immigrants, good as in 1600 (no growth)
agriculture - creates path dependency...high - Volatile
productivity = surplus invested in education - Average age of marriage 13
(through taxation), high wages incentivise - Malthusian trap
invention of labour saving technology - North - Any gains to urban workers
America remains richer - Industry Remarkable growth
- BUT: model only works if migration is free, doesnt 1880-1914
work for Caribbean, American South or Brazil - Driven by local entrepreneurs +
- finance, but with imported
equipment and know how
- But only 2% of workers in
industry
Railway
- Built for military (supress revolt)
+ commercial, social was a
bonus
- More reliable than ships
- Can reach middle of country
- Raises real income by 16%: half
from decreased trade costs
- When railroad extended to an
average district, real average
agri wages increased by 16%
- BUT little effect: needed to
industrialise to experience
growth
Post colonial nationalism
- Worked well
