The Location of the UK Cotton Textiles Industry in 1838: A Quantitative Analysis

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University of Warwick; Humboldt University of Berlin
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050714000874
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 1103-1139
• 关键词: lancashire cotton; PRODUCTIVITY; england; wage

摘要

We examine the geography of cotton textiles in Britain in 1838 to test claims about why the industry came to be so heavily concentrated in Lancashire. Our analysis considers both first and second nature aspects of geography including the availability of water power, humidity, coal prices, market access, and sunk costs. We show that some of these characteristics have substantial explanatory power. Moreover, we exploit the change from water to steam power to show that the persistent effect of first nature characteristics on industry location can be explained by a combination of sunk costs and agglomeration effects.