● An industrial revolution is rapid significant technological change
○ Usually refers to technological innovations which substitute machines
for humans and bring about a modern economy
● A redeployment of resources from agriculture
Why was Britain first?
● Britain had a series of revolutions that paralleled the IR
○ High agricultural productivity allows the generation of surplus and
individuals to move to other sectors
○ Proto industrialisation
○ Good institutions - Glorious Revolution (1688), property rights
○ Labour characteristics - applied technical knowledge, high wages
○ Population - fertility, urbanisation
○ Policy - banking / finance, taxes, infrastructure
○ Geography - resources (coal), isolation
○ Speculative - war, religion
● Allen (2009a) - emphasis on factor prices
○ High labour costs meant inventions were only cost-effective in Britain
● Mokyr (2009) - institutions
○ British science was better and more connected
○ Physical and intellectual property rights
● Crafts (1977) - luck and macro invention
○ Random component matters
○ Geography - separated from Europe by the channel, availability of coal
○ Religion, monarchy
● Ogilvie (2007) - no main emphasis
○ No single factor that every other country lacked
○ Britain brought all possible factors together for the first time
Why was it a revolution?
● Structural change (agriculture to industry)
● Substitution of labour for machines
● Use of non-organic materials - fossil fuels, minerals, synthetics
● Increase in the scale of production
● Regional specialisation
○ Concentration of industry near inputs (Newcastle)
● Integration of markets due to transport / communication inventions
● Capital accumulation (high investment: GDP)
, ● Emergence of general-purpose tech (steam)
● Social and institutional change
○ Nature of work, increased inequality
● Rapid technological change and total factor productivity growth
Technological change
● Growth of output = residual (TFP) growth + growth of K + growth of L
○ Y = A K α L1−α
○ A - technological shock has dynamic effects
○ A affects output and labour through capital (SEE SLIDES)
Tech change was concentrated in:
● Steam
○ Savery pump (1698) to the Corliss Engine (1849)
○ Capacity of steam engines increased from 3 to 2060 (1760-1870)
● Textiles
○ Flying shuttle (1733) to the Power Loom (1785)
○ Mechanisation increased labour productivity
○ Real cost of cotton decreased from 7d/lb to 2.33d/lb (1760-1775)
○ Technological change was driven by the cotton industry
■ Trade prevented the price of cotton falling as it made demand
more elastic
■ Raw cotton was bought from Turkey, Brazil and the New World -
increased the slave trade
● Iron and steel
○ Derby coke smelting (1709) to the Bessemer process (1856)
○ More developed processes use higher temperatures, allowing the
production of steel which is higher quality than iron
● Supported by watchmaking (gears), transport and communications
● Modernised sectors increased British TFP growth by 0.34% per year between
1780-1860 (total increase was 55%)
What drove technological change in Britain?
Allen - it paid to invent in Britain (2009)
● Britain had high wages but cheap capital and energy
● “Macro inventions” were expensive and needed
R&D
● Britain was the only country with the right factor
prices / market size for macro inventions
● RoW focused on “micro inventions”
−w
● The slope of a country’s isocost curve is
r
Voordelen van het kopen van samenvattingen bij Stuvia op een rij:
Verzekerd van kwaliteit door reviews
Stuvia-klanten hebben meer dan 700.000 samenvattingen beoordeeld. Zo weet je zeker dat je de beste documenten koopt!
Snel en makkelijk kopen
Je betaalt supersnel en eenmalig met iDeal, creditcard of Stuvia-tegoed voor de samenvatting. Zonder lidmaatschap.
Focus op de essentie
Samenvattingen worden geschreven voor en door anderen. Daarom zijn de samenvattingen altijd betrouwbaar en actueel. Zo kom je snel tot de kern!
Veelgestelde vragen
Wat krijg ik als ik dit document koop?
Je krijgt een PDF, die direct beschikbaar is na je aankoop. Het gekochte document is altijd, overal en oneindig toegankelijk via je profiel.
Tevredenheidsgarantie: hoe werkt dat?
Onze tevredenheidsgarantie zorgt ervoor dat je altijd een studiedocument vindt dat goed bij je past. Je vult een formulier in en onze klantenservice regelt de rest.
Van wie koop ik deze samenvatting?
Stuvia is een marktplaats, je koop dit document dus niet van ons, maar van verkoper bethwalton03. Stuvia faciliteert de betaling aan de verkoper.
Zit ik meteen vast aan een abonnement?
Nee, je koopt alleen deze samenvatting voor €3,71. Je zit daarna nergens aan vast.