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Greasing the wheels of rural transformation? Margarine and the competition for the British butter market

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  • Markus Lampe
  • Paul Sharp

Abstract

type="main"> This article considers an example of the impact of a new good on producers of close substitutes: the invention of margarine and its rapid introduction into the British market from the mid-1870s. This presented a challenge to the traditional suppliers of that market, butter producers from different European countries. We argue that the capacity to react quickly to the appearance of this cheap substitute by improving quality and establishing product differentiation was critical for the fortunes of butter producers. This is illustrated by a discussion of the different reactions to margarine and quality upgrading in Ireland, Denmark, and the Netherlands. A statistical analysis using monthly data for Britain from 1881–7 confirms that margarine had a greater impact on the price of poor quality butter than that of high quality butter, presumably because it was a stronger substitute.

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  • Markus Lampe & Paul Sharp, 2014. "Greasing the wheels of rural transformation? Margarine and the competition for the British butter market," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(3), pages 769-792, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:67:y:2014:i:3:p:769-792
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/1468-0289.12046
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    Cited by:

    1. Sofia Teives Henriques & Paul Sharp, 2016. "The Danish agricultural revolution in an energy perspective: a case of development with few domestic energy sources," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 69(3), pages 844-869, August.
    2. Peter Sandholt Jensen & Markus Lampe & Paul Sharp & Christian Volmar Skovsgaard, 2018. "‘Getting to Denmark’: the Role of Elites for Development," Working Papers 0125, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    3. Markus Lampe & Paul Sharp, 2015. "How the Danes discovered Britain: the international integration of the Danish dairy industry before 1880," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 19(4), pages 432-453.
    4. Bentzen, Jeanet & Boberg-Fazlic, Nina & Sharp, Paul & Skovsgaard, Christian & Vedel, Christian, 2023. "Holy Cows and Spilt Milk: The Impact of Religious Conflict on Firm-Level Productivity," CEPR Discussion Papers 18679, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Eoin McLaughlin & Paul Sharp, 2021. "Competition between organisational forms in Danish and Irish dairying around the turn of the twentieth century," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 63(2), pages 314-341, February.
    6. Sharp, Paul & Jensen, Peter & Lampe, Markus & Skovsgaard, Christian, 2018. "‘Getting to Denmark’: the Role of Elites for Development," CEPR Discussion Papers 12679, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Markus Lampe & Paul Sharp, 2024. "Of the bovine ilk: Quantifying the welfare of dairy cattle in history, 1750-1900," Working Papers 0257, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    8. Eoin McLaughlin & Paul Sharp & Xanthi Tsoukli & Christian Vedel, 2021. "Ireland in a Danish mirror: A microlevel comparison of the productivity of Danish and Irish creameries before the First World War," Working Papers 0219, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L66 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Food; Beverages; Cosmetics; Tobacco
    • N53 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

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