Agricultural seasonality and the organization of manufacturing in early industrial economies: The contrast between England and the United States

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: National Bureau of Economic Research; The World Bank
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050700018453
• 发表日期: 1997
• 页码: 288-321
• 关键词: proto-industrialization; PRODUCTIVITY; invention; censuses; south; work

摘要

The greater flexibility associated with workers being able to choose the time and circumstance of their work allowed cottage manufacture to compete with technically more productive manufactories by rendering it more effective at harnessing a part-time or offpeak workforce whose opportunity cost was low. Not only did this mean that cottage manufacture was better suited to the employment of women and children, who preferred flexibility in their hours and place of work but also that the greater seasonality of labor supply in England led that economy to rely more on cottage manufacturing than did the United States during early industrialization.