New Perspectives on the Late Victorian Economy: Essays in Quantitative Economic History, 1860–1914

by Edited by James Foreman-Peck

• ISBN13: 9780521890854
• ISBN10: 0521890853
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-08-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Through channels both open and concealed, the Victorian economy continues to influence us powerfully. Much economic thinking today gains support from perceptions of how the nineteenth-century British economy worked and how well it satisfied wants. Contemporary oligopolistic industrial structure is contrasted with Victorian self-regulating competition; the gross inequalities of Victorian laissez-faire are compared with support for the needy provided by the modern welfare state; and some regard Victorian values as vital principles of social organisation which should be regained. By examining the behaviour of the British economy between 1865 and 1914, the present work casts light upon some of these views. It does so in a variety of ways. New methods or evidence are deployed to establish accepted conclusions more firmly; unwarrantedly neglected aspects of the economy are analysed with present day concerns in mind; and traditional conclusions are reassessed. The book focuses upon three central themes: industrial organisation and technology, wages and living standards, and the monetary system. These are at the heart of discussions of productivity growth, the standard of living, well-being and poverty; the criteria by which the Victorian economic system should ultimately be judged.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	ix
List of figures	x
List of tables	xi
Preface	xv
1 Quantitative analysis of the Victorian economy	1	(34)
James Foreman-Peck
PART I TECHNOLOGY AND INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION	35	(106)
2 Historical trends in international patterns of technological innovation	31	(42)
John Cantwell
3 Railways and late Victorian economic growth	73	(23)
James Foreman-Peck
Appendix 3.1 Data for the total factor productivity calculation	90	(1)
Appendix 3.2 Derivation of the steady state response of income per head to railway technology	91	(5)
4 Emergence of gas and water monopolies in nineteenth-century Britain: contested markets and public control	96	(29)
Bob Millward
5 The expansion of British multinational companies: testing for managerial failure	125	(16)
Stephen Nicholas
PART II DISTRIBUTION	141	(108)
6 A new look at the cost of living 1810-1914	151	(29)
Charles Feinstein
7 Poor Law statistics and the geography of economic distress	180	(38)
Humphrey Southall
8 Perfect equilibrium down the pit	218	(31)
John G. Treble
Appendix 8.1 The bargaining model	241	(8)
PART III THE MONETARY SYSTEM AND MONETARY POLICY	249	(95)
9 Money, interest rates and the Great Depression: Britain from 1870-1914	251	(34)
Forrest H. Capie, Terence C. Mills and Geoffrey E. Wood
10 The UK demand for money, commercial bills and quasi-money assets, 1871-1913	285	(20)
Paul Turner
Appendix 10.1 Econometric techniques	300	(1)
Appendix 10.2 Data	301	(4)
11 An analysis of Bank of England discount and advance behaviour 1810-1914	305	(39)
Tessa Ogden
Index	344