IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/wpaper/22354.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Steam as a general purpose technology: a growth accounting perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Crafts, Nicholas

Abstract

The contribution of steam to British economic growth in the nineteenth century is estimated using growth accounting methods similar to those recently employed to examine the role of ICT. The results indicate that steam contributed little to growth before 1830 and had its peak impact about a hundred years after Watt's famous invention. Only with the advent of high-pressure steam after 1850 did the technology realise its potential. Compared with ICT, steam's impact on the annual rate of growth was modest. It is unlikely that these conclusions are vulnerable to quantification of hitherto unmeasured TFP spillovers. Copyright 2004 Royal Economic Society.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Crafts, Nicholas, 2003. "Steam as a general purpose technology: a growth accounting perspective," Economic History Working Papers 22354, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:wpaper:22354
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/22354/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicholas Oulton, 2002. "ICT and Productivity Growth in the United Kingdom," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 18(3), pages 363-379.
    2. Paul A. David & Gavin Wright, 1999. "Early Twentieth Century Productivity Growth Dynamics: An Inquiry into the Economic History of "Our Ignorance"," Oxford University Economic and Social History Series _033, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    3. Stephen D. Oliner & Daniel E. Sichel, 2000. "The Resurgence of Growth in the Late 1990s: Is Information Technology the Story?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 3-22, Fall.
    4. Nathan Rosenberg & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2001. "A General Purpose Technology at Work: The Corliss Steam Engine in the late 19th Century US," NBER Working Papers 8485, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Crafts, N F R & Leybourne, S J & Mills, Terence C, 1989. "The Climacteric in Late Victorian Britain and France: A Reappraisal of the Evidence," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(2), pages 103-117, April-Jun.
    6. Paul David & Gavin Wright, 1999. "Early Twentieth Century Productivity Growth Dynamics: An Inquiry into the Economic History of Our Ignorance," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _033, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    7. Harberger, Arnold C, 1998. "A Vision of the Growth Process," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 1-32, March.
    8. John W. Kanefsky, 1979. "Motive Power in British Industry and the Accuracy of the 1870 Factory Return," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 32(3), pages 360-375, August.
    9. Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2000. "Beyond Computation: Information Technology, Organizational Transformation and Business Performance," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 23-48, Fall.
    10. E. H. Phelps Brown & S. J. Handfield-Jones, 1952. "THE CLIMACTERIC OF THE 1890's: A STUDY IN THE EXPANDING ECONOMY," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 266-307.
    11. A. E. Musson, 1963. "British Industrial Growth during the‘Great Depression’1873-96: Some Comments," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 15(3), pages 529-533, April.
    12. A.E. Musson, 1976. "Industrial Motive Power in the United Kingdom, 1800–70," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 29(3), pages 415-439, August.
    13. Dorothy S. Brady, 1966. "Output, Employment, and Productivity in the United States after 1800," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number brad66-1.
    14. Crafts, N. F. R., 1995. "Exogenous or Endogenous Growth? The Industrial Revolution Reconsidered," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(4), pages 745-772, December.
    15. Foreman-Peck,James (ed.), 1991. "New Perspectives on the Late Victorian Economy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521391078, October.
    16. Atack, Jeremy, 1979. "Fact in fiction? The relative costs of steam and water power: a simulation approach," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 409-437, October.
    17. Unknown, 2001. "General Discussion," Proceedings of the 6th Agricultural and Food Policy Systems Information Workshop, 2000: Trade Liberalization Under NAFTA: Report Card on Agriculture 16839, Farm Foundation, Agricultural and Food Policy Systems Information Workshops.
    18. Gerard Turnbull, 1987. "Canals, coal and regional growth during the industrial revolution," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 40(4), pages 537-560, November.
    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. Harald Edquist & Magnus Henrekson, 2006. "Technological Breakthroughs and Productivity Growth," Research in Economic History, in: Research in Economic History, pages 1-53, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    2. Crafts, Nicholas, 2003. "Quantifying the contribution of technological change to economic growth in different eras: a review of the evidence," Economic History Working Papers 22350, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    3. Carolina Castaldi & Alessandro Nuvolari, 2004. "Technological Revolutions and Economic Growth: The “Age of Steam” Reconsidered," LEM Papers Series 2004/11, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    4. Mauro Napoletano & Andrea Roventini & Sandro Sapio, 2004. "Yeast vs. Mushrooms: A Note on Harberger's "A Vision of the Growth Process"," LEM Papers Series 2004/03, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    5. Castaldi, C. & Nuvolari, A., 2003. "Technological Revolutions and Economic Growth:The �Age of Steam� Reconsidered," Working Papers 03.25, Eindhoven Center for Innovation Studies.
    6. Crafts, Nicholas, 2002. "The Solow Productivity Paradox in Historical Perspective," CEPR Discussion Papers 3142, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Crafts, Nicholas, 2004. "Productivity Growth in the Industrial Revolution: A New Growth Accounting Perspective," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(2), pages 521-535, June.
    8. Crafts, Nicholas & Mills, Terence C., 2004. "Was 19th century British growth steam-powered?: the climacteric revisited," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 156-171, April.
    9. K.J Joseph & Vinoj Abraham, 2007. "Information technology and productivity: Evidence from India's manufacturing sector," Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum Working Papers 389, Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum, India.
    10. Llopis, Maria Teresa Sanchis, 2016. "Did electricity drive Spain’s “most progressive decade”?," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 309, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    11. Crafts, Nicholas, 2004. "Social savings as a measure of the contribution of a new technology to economic growth," Economic History Working Papers 22554, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    12. van Ark, Bart & Smits, Jan Pieter, 2005. "Technology Regimes and Productivity Growth in Europe and the United States: A Comparative and Historical Perspective," Institute of European Studies, Working Paper Series qt1td1h23k, Institute of European Studies, UC Berkeley.
    13. Crafts, Nicholas & O’Rourke, Kevin Hjortshøj, 2014. "Twentieth Century Growth*This research has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant agreement no. 249546.," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 6, pages 263-346, Elsevier.
    14. Paul A. David & Gavin Wright, "undated". "General Purpose Technologies and Surges in Productivity: Historical Reflections on the Future of the ICT Revolution," Working Papers 99026, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
    15. Stefanie Haller & Iulia Siedschlag, 2011. "Determinants of ICT adoption: evidence from firm-level data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(26), pages 3775-3788.
    16. Gilbert Cette & Christian Pfister, 2004. "Challenges of the “New Economy” for Monetary Policy," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 8, pages 27-36, Spring.
    17. Del Gaudio, Belinda L. & Porzio, Claudio & Sampagnaro, Gabriele & Verdoliva, Vincenzo, 2021. "How do mobile, internet and ICT diffusion affect the banking industry? An empirical analysis," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 327-332.
    18. Daudin, Guillaume, 2010. "Domestic Trade and Market Size in Late-Eighteenth-Century France," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(3), pages 716-743, September.
    19. Atzeni, Gianfranco E. & Carboni, Oliviero A., 2006. "ICT productivity and firm propensity to innovative investment: Evidence from Italian microdata," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 139-156, June.
    20. Aboal D. & Tacsir E., 2015. "Innovation and productivity in services and manufacturing : The role of ICT investment," MERIT Working Papers 2015-012, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • N0 - Economic History - - General
    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance
    • B1 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925
    • O52 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Europe

    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:ehl:wpaper:22354. 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: LSERO Manager on behalf of EH Dept. (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/chlseuk.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.