IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cda/wpaper/170.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Long March of History: Farm Wages, Population and Economic Growth, England 1209-1869

Author

Listed:
  • Gregory Clark

    (Department of Economics, University of California Davis)

Abstract

The paper forms three series for English farm workers 1209-1869: nominal daywages, the implied marginal product of a day of farm labour, and thepurchasing power of a days? wage in terms of farm workers? consumption.These series suggest that labour productivity in English agriculture was alreadyhigh in the middle ages. Further they fit well with one method of estimatingmedieval population which suggests a peak English population circa 1300 ofnearly 6 million. Finally they imply that both agricultural technology and thegeneral efficiency of the economy was static from 1250 till 1600. Economicchanges were in these years entirely a product of demographic shifts. Finallyin 1600 to 1800 technological advance in agriculture provided an alternativesource of dynamism in the English economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Gregory Clark, 2005. "The Long March of History: Farm Wages, Population and Economic Growth, England 1209-1869," Working Papers 170, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:cda:wpaper:170
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.dss.ucdavis.edu/files/L71LS9GZM8M3dbFqAwNMpP9h/05-40.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Davenport, Frances Gardiner, 1906. "The Economic Development of a Norfolk Manor 1086-1565," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number davenport1906.
    2. Karakacili, Eona, 2004. "English Agrarian Labor Productivity Rates Before the Black Death: A Case Study," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(1), pages 24-60, March.
    3. Munro, John H., 2002. "Wage-stickiness, monetary changes, and real incomes in late-medieval England and the Low Countries, 1300 - 1500: did money matter?," MPRA Paper 10846, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Sep 2002.
    4. Allen, Robert C., 2000. "Economic structure and agricultural productivity in Europe, 1300–1800," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(1), pages 1-25, April.
    5. John Munro, 2002. "Postan, Population, and Prices in Late-Medieval England and Flanders," Working Papers munro-02-04, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    6. Clark, Gregory, 1991. "Labor productivity and farm size in English agriculture before mechanization: A note," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 248-257, April.
    7. J. Z. Titow, 1961. "Some Evidence of the Thirteenth Century Population Increase," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 14(2), pages 218-224, December.
    8. Clark, Gregory & Clark, Anthony, 2001. "Common Rights To Land In England, 1475–1839," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 61(4), pages 1009-1036, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gregory Clark, 2005. "The Long March of History: Farm Wages, Population and Economic Growth, England 1209-1869," Working Papers 540, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    2. Jacob L. Weisdorf, 2006. "From domestic manufacture to Industrial Revolution: long-run growth and agricultural development," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(2), pages 264-287, April.
    3. van Bavel, Bas, 2016. "The Invisible Hand?: How Market Economies have Emerged and Declined Since AD 500," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199608133.
    4. Bruce M. S. Campbell, 2010. "Nature as historical protagonist: environment and society in pre‐industrial England," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 63(2), pages 281-314, May.
    5. Gregory Clark, 2007. "The long march of history: Farm wages, population, and economic growth, England 1209–18691," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 60(1), pages 97-135, February.
    6. Patrick Legros & Andrew F. Newman & Eugenio Proto, 2014. "Smithian Growth through Creative Organization," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(5), pages 796-811, December.
    7. Ferreira, Pedro Cavalcanti & Pessôa, Samuel & dos Santos, Marcelo Rodrigues, 2016. "Globalization And The Industrial Revolution," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 643-666, April.
    8. Wolfram Schlenker, 2018. "Introduction to "Agricultural Productivity and Producer Behavior"," NBER Chapters, in: Agricultural Productivity and Producer Behavior, pages 1-9, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Qing Pei & David D Zhang & Harry F Lee & Guodong Li, 2014. "Climate Change and Macro-Economic Cycles in Pre-Industrial Europe," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(2), pages 1-8, February.
    10. Bassino, Jean-Pascal & Broadberry, Stephen & Fukao, Kyoji & Gupta, Bishnupriya & Takashima, Masanori, 2019. "Japan and the great divergence, 730–1874," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-22.
    11. Broadberry, Stephen & Ghosal, Sayantan & Proto, Eugenio, 2011. "Is Anonymity the Missing Link Between Commercial and Industrial Revolution?," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 974, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    12. Daniel Barbezat, 2011. "The Economic History of European Growth," Chapters, in: Gail M. Hoyt & KimMarie McGoldrick (ed.), International Handbook on Teaching and Learning Economics, chapter 51, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Broadberry Stephen, 2012. "Recent Developments in the Theory of Very Long Run Growth: A Historical Appraisal," Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, De Gruyter, vol. 53(1), pages 277-306, May.
    14. Ken Tabata, 2013. "The Expansion of the Commercial Sector and the Child Quantity-Quality Transition in a Malthusian World," Discussion Paper Series 105, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised May 2013.
    15. Mikolaj Malinowski, 2013. "East of Eden: Polish living standards in a European perspective, ca. 1500-1800," Working Papers 0043, Utrecht University, Centre for Global Economic History.
    16. Broadberry, Stephen & Ghosal, Sayantan & Proto, Eugenio, 2017. "Anonymity, efficiency wages and technological progress," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 379-394.
    17. Mark Koyama, 2009. "The Price of Time and Labour Supply: From the Black Death to the Industrious Revolution," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _078, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    18. World Bank Group, 2015. "Tanzania Mainland Poverty Assessment," World Bank Publications - Reports 22021, The World Bank Group.
    19. Holger Strulik & Jacob Weisdorf, 2007. "The Simplest Unified Growth Theory," Discussion Papers 07-21, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    20. Caspari, Volker & Pertz, Klaus, 2008. "Unified Growth Based on the Specific Factors Model," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 35697, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    farm wages; economic wages;

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • N50 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cda:wpaper:170. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Letters and Science IT Services Unit (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/educdus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.