Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T05:44:04.482Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Malthus, Wages, and Preindustrial Growth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 May 2012

GREGORY CLARK ,
JOSEPH CUMMINS  and
BROCK SMITH
GREGORY CLARK*
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Economics, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616 E-mail: gclark@ucdavis.edu.
JOSEPH CUMMINS*
Affiliation:
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Economics, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616 E-mail: jrcummins@ucdavis.edu.
BROCK SMITH*
Affiliation:
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Economics, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616 E-mail: brosmith@ucdavis.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Gregory Clark argued in A Farewell to Alms that preindustrial societies, including England, were Malthusian. Day wages show incomes were trendless: as high in Europe in the medieval era as in 1800, even in England. The opposed view is that England and the Netherlands grew substantially from 1200 to 1800. Early day wages overestimate living standards. Here we show that preindustrial farm employment shares can be estimated from probate occupation reports. These imply only 60 percent employed in farming in England in 1560–1579 and 1653–1660, consistent with the high incomes indicated by wages. Day wages do measure preindustrial living standards.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , 30 May 2012 , pp. 364 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allen, Robert C. “The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War.” Explorations in Economic History 38, no. 4 (2001): 411–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, Robert C. “Review of Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World.” Journal of Economic Literature 46, no. 4 (2008): 946–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angeles, Luis. “GDP per Capita or Real Wages? Making Sense of Conflicting Views on Preindustrial Europe.” Explorations in Economic History 45, no. 2 (2008): 147–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broadberry, S., Campbell, B., Klein, Alexander, Overton, Mark, and van Leeuwen, Bas. “British Economic Growth, 1270-1870.” Unpublished Manuscript, London School of Economics, 2011.Google Scholar
Campbell, Bruce. “The Population of Early Tudor England: A Re-Evaluation of the 1522 Muster Returns and 1524 and 1525 Lay Subsidies.” Journal of Historical Geography 7, no. 2 (1981): 145–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Gregory. “The Long March of History: Farm Wages, Population, and Economic Growth, England, 1209-1869.” Economic History Review 60, no. 1 (2007a): 97–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Gregory. A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007b.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Gregory. “The Macroeconomic Aggregates for England, 1209-1869.” Research in Economic History 27 (2010a): 51–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Gregory. “The Consumer Revolution: Turning Point in Human History, or Statistical Artifact?” Working Paper, UC Davis, 2010b.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Gregory. “1381 and the Malthusian Delusion.” Forthcoming 2012, Explorations in Economic History.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Gregory, and Cummins, Neil. “Urbanization, Mortality, and Fertility in Malthusian England.” American Economic Review 99, no. 2 (May 2009): 242–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, Gregory, and Cummins, Neil. “England's First Demographic Transition.” Working Paper, UC Davis, 2010.Google Scholar
Clark, Gregory, Huberman, Michael, and Lindert, Peter. “A British Food Puzzle: 1770-1850.” Economic History Review 68, no. ? (May 1995): 215–37.Google Scholar
Crafts, N. F. R. “Patterns of Development in Nineteenth-Century Europe.” Oxford Economic Papers 36, no. 3 (1984): 438–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Ralph. The Industrial Revolution and British Overseas Trade. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1979.Google Scholar
De Vries, Jan. European Urbanization, 1500-1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
De Vries, Jan. The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Nesta. “Occupations and Status of Male Testators in Cambridgeshire, 1551-1750.” In When Death Do Us Part: Understanding and Interpreting the Probate Records of Early Modern England, edited by Arkell, Tom, Evans, Nesta, and Goose, Nigel, 176–88. Oxford: Leopard's Head Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C., French, H., Thornton, H. C., and Wareham, Andrew, eds. Essex Hearth Tax Michaelmas, 1670. London: British Record Society, Hearth Tax Series, VII. (forthcoming 2012)Google Scholar
Fry, Edward Alex. Calendar of Wills and Administrations in the Consistory Court of the Bishop of Worcester, 1451-1600. Vol. 31. London: British Record Society, 1904.Google Scholar
Fry, Edward Alex. Calendar of Administrations in the Consistory Court of the Bishop of Chichester, 1555-1800. Calendar of Wills and Administrations in the Peculiar Court of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1520-1670. Calendar of Wills and Administrations in the Peculiar Court of the Bishop of Chichester, 1577-1800. Vols. 64. London: British Record Society, 1940.Google Scholar
Gibson, J. S. W.Wills and Where to Find Them. Chichester: Phillimore, 1974.Google Scholar
Glass, D. V. “Gregory King's Estimate of the Population of England and Wales, 1695.” Population Studies 3, no. 4 (Mar. 1950): 338–74.Google Scholar
Goose, Nigel, and Evans, Nesta. “Wills as a Historical Source.” In When Death Do Us Part: Understanding and Interpreting the Probate Records of Early Modern England, edited by Arkell, Tom, Evans, Nesta, and Goose, Nigel, 38–71. Oxford: Leopard's Head Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Hall, William Hamilton. Calendar of the Wills and Administrations in the Archdeaconry Court of Lewes in the Bishopric of Chichester. London: British Record Society, Vol. 24, 1901.Google Scholar
Hatcher, John. “Unreal Wages: Long-Run Living Standards and the ‘Golden Age' of the Fifteenth Century.” In Commercial Activity, Markets, and Entrepreneurs in the Middle Ages, edited by Dodds, Ben and Liddy, Christian D., 1–24. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Hervey, Sydenham Henry Augustus. Suffolk in 1674: Being the Hearth Tax Returns. Woodbridge, Suffolk: George Booth, 1905.Google Scholar
Hervey, Sydenham Henry Augustus. Suffolk in 1524: Being the Return for a Subsidy Granted in 1523. Suffolk Green Books, No. 10. Woodbridge, Suffolk: George Booth, 1910.Google Scholar
Heston, Alan, Summers, Robert, and Aten, Bettina. Penn World Table Version 6.3. Center for International Comparisons of Production, Income and Prices at the University of Pennsylvania, August 2009.Google Scholar
Kitson, Peter. “The Recording of Occupations in the Anglican Baptism Registers of England and Wales, 1690-1799.” The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, Geography Department, Cambridge University, 2007.Google Scholar
Lindert, Peter H. “English Occupations, 1670-1811.” The Journal of Economic History 40, no. 4 (1980): 685–712.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maddison, Angus. Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Malanima, Paolo. “Wages, Productivity, and Working Time in Italy (1270-1913).” Journal of European Economic History 36, no. 1 (2007): 127–74.Google Scholar
Özmucur, Süleyman, and Pamuk, Şevket. “Real Wages and Standards of Living in the Ottoman Empire, 1489-1914.” The Journal of Economic History 62, no. 2 (2002): 293–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mokyr, Joel. The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain, 1700-1850. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Persson, K. Gunnar. Pre-Industrial Economic Growth, Social Organization, and Technological Progress in Europe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988.Google Scholar
Persson, K. Gunnar. “The Malthus Delusion.” European Review of Economic History 12, no. 2 (August 2008): 165–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ridge, C. Harold. Index of Wills and Administrations in the Probate Registry at Canterbury, Vol. II, 1558–1577. London: British Record Society, Vol. 65, 1940.Google Scholar
Rorke, Martin. “English and Scottish Overseas Trade, 1300-1600.” Economic History Review 59, no. 2 (2006): 265–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Serjeant, W. R., and K, R.. Index of the Probate Records of the Court of the Archdeaconry of Suffolk, 1444-1700. London: British Record Society, 1979.Google Scholar
Serjeant, W. R., and K, R.. Index of the Probate Records of the Court of the Archdeaconry of Sudbury, 1354-1700. London: British Record Society, 1984.Google Scholar
Söderberg, Johan. “Long-Term Trends in Real Wages of Labourers.” In Historical Monetary and Financial Statistics for Sweden: Exchange Rates, Prices, and Wages, 1277-2008, edited by Edvinsson, Rodney, Jacobson, Tor, and Waldenström, Daniel, 453–78. Stockholm: Sveriges Riksbank, 2010.Google Scholar
Shaw-Taylor, Leigh, Wrigley, E. A., Davies, R. S., Kitson, P. M., Newton, G., and Satchell, A. E. M.. “The Occupational Structure of England, c.1710-c.1871: Work in Progress.” Cambridge, England: Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, 2010.Google Scholar
United, Kingdom, Parliamentary Papers. Census of Great Britain. Population: Occupation Abstract, Part I England and Wales. Vol. XXVII, 1844.Google Scholar
Van, Zanden, Luiten, Jan. “The ‘Revolt of the Early Modernists' and the ‘First Modern Economy': An Assessment.” Economic History Review 55, no. 4 (2002): 619–41.Google Scholar
Webb, Cliff. Surrey Will Abstracts, Volumes 1-41. West Surrey Family History Society, 1996-2004.Google Scholar
Wrigley, E. A. “Urban Growth and Agricultural Change: England and the Continent in the Early Modern Period.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 15, no. 4 (1985): 683–728.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wrigley, E. A. “English County Populations in the Later Eighteenth Century.” Economic History Review 60, no. 1 (February 2007): 35–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wrigley, E. A., Davies, R. S., Oeppen, J. E., and Schofield, Roger. English Population History from Family Reconstitution, 1580-1837. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar