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The Industrial Revolution

In: Handbook of Economic Growth

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  • Clark, Gregory

Abstract

The Industrial Revolution decisively changed economywide productivity growth rates. For successful economies, measured efficiency growth rates increased from close to zero to close to 1% per year in the blink of an eye, in terms of the long history of humanity, seemingly within 50years of 1800 in England. Yet the Industrial Revolution has defied simple economic explanations or modeling. This paper seeks to set out the empirical parameters of the Industrial Revolution that any economic theory must encompass, and illustrate why this makes explaining the Industrial Revolution so difficult within the context of standard economic models and narratives.

Suggested Citation

  • Clark, Gregory, 2014. "The Industrial Revolution," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 217-262, Elsevier.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:grochp:2-217
    DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-444-53538-2.00005-8
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    1. Does Age Heaping Mean the Romans were Innumerate?
      by noreply@blogger.com (David Stern) in Stochastic Trend on 2015-01-11 12:02:00

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

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