Considering the Counterfactual: Real Wages in the First Industrial Revolution

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Crafts, Nicholas; Mills, Terence C.
• 署名单位: University of Sussex; University of Warwick; Loughborough University
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/ueab081
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 1994-2006
• 关键词: england; malthus; britain

摘要

We investigate a structural model of demographic-economic interactions for England during 1570 to 1850. We estimate that the annual rate of population growth consistent with constant real wages was 0.4% before 1760 but 1.5% thereafter. We find that exogenous shocks increased population growth dramatically in the early decades of the Industrial Revolution. Simulations of our model show that if these demographic shocks had occurred before the Industrial Revolution the impact on real wages would have been catastrophic and that these shocks were largely responsible for very slow growth of real wages during the Industrial Revolution.