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English Workers' Real Wages: Reply to Crafts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Peter H. Lindert  and
Jeffrey G. Williamson
Peter H. Lindert
Affiliation:
Peter H. Lindert is Professor of Economics, University of California, Davis, California 95616. Jeffrey G. Williamson is Professor of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138.
Jeffrey G. Williamson
Affiliation:
Peter H. Lindert is Professor of Economics, University of California, Davis, California 95616. Jeffrey G. Williamson is Professor of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138.
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Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , March 1985 , pp. 145 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1985

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References

1 Lindert, P. H. and Williamson, J. G., “English Workers' Living Standards During the Industrial Revolution: A New Look,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 36 (02 1983), pp. 1–25. A fuller display of evidence can be found in a 1980 discussion paper of the same title available from the Department of Economics, University of California (Working Paper Series No. 144).Google Scholar

2 Deane, Phyllis and Cole, W. A., British Economic Growth, 1688–1959 (2nd ed., Cambridge, 1969), p. 167.Google Scholar

3 These implications become clear when the Deane-Cole figures are juxtaposed with the census and the house duty returns: Many untaxed houses were, of course, worth less than the bottom chargeable values, £5 for 1820/21 and £10 by 1829/30. But many were not. Over 170,000 exempt farmhouses were worth more than £5 in 1820/21, and over 140,000 exempt farmhouses were worth over £10 in 1829/30. So were many houses inhabited by exempt large families. For such reasons, it is hard to believe that the untaxed group as a whole could be worth no more than the same number of poor rural cottages. We think £5 would be a more realistic average for untaxed houses. (For the Deane-Cole estimates, see British Economic Growth, p. 166. For official tax and census returns, see House of Commons, Sessional Papers, 1822, XV, pp. 427, 486, 539; 1823, XIV, p. 323; 1830/1831, XI, pp. 36–49; and 1833, XXXVII, p. 486.Google Scholar On exemptions and other details of the house tax, see Stamp, Josiah, British Incomes and Properly (London, 1922), chap. 4 and appendices;Google Scholar and Williamson, Jeffrey G., Did British Capitalism Breed Inequality? (London, 1984),Google Scholar Appendix E. On rural cottage rents in 1833, see Poor Law Commissioners, Rural Queries (London, 1834), Question 18, which yielded an average rent of £3.475 for a set of 16 counties matching the counties covered by Caird's 1850/51 estimates (next footnote).Google Scholar

4 See Bamsby, G. J., “The Standard of Living in the Black Country in the Nineteenth Century,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 24 (05 1971), pp. 220–39;Google ScholarRichardson, T. L., “The Standard of Living Controversy, 1790–1840” (Ph.D. diss., University of Hull, 1977), pp. 129–33, 193–95, 245–48, 284–95, 331–41, 377–80;Google ScholarCaird, James, English Agriculture in 1850–51 (2nd ed., New York, 1967), p. 474;Google Scholar and Poor Law Commission, Rural Queries. The available series on farm and land rents also underline the absence of a significant dip in rents after Waterloo. See the farm rent series in Thompson, R. J., “An Inquiry into the Rent of Agricultural Land in England and Wales during the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 70 (12 1907), p. 612,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and in Wordie, J. R., “Rent Movements and the English Tenant Farmer, 1700–1839,” Research in Economic History, 6 (1981), pp. 199–235.Google Scholar

5 The implicit-price series as derived by Crafts, measured in pounds sterling of gross cotton-good output per pound of raw cotton imports, moves as follows: 1760 =.1765, 1772/74 =.2143, 1781/83 =.4598, 1784/86 =.3354, 1787/89 =.2834, 1795/97 =.3774, 1798/1800 =.2656, 1801/03 =.2672, 1805/07 =.2995, 1811/13 =.4354, and 1815/17 =.3009. See Deane and Cole, British Economic Growth, pp. 185, 187.Google Scholar

6 Brown, E. H. Phelps and Hopkins, Sheila V., “Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consumables, Compared with Builders' Wage Rates,” Econ Note that our 1983 article did not make the “implicit assumption that cotton clothing was not consumed” before 1815, but only that its price movements might be proxied by those of traditional textiles until proper cotton-goods price series become available.Google Scholar

7 Beveridge, Lord, Prices and Wages in England… (New York, 1966), series on Eton College cloth; Westminster broadcloth for scholars, almsmen, and purple cloth; Lord Chamberlain's livery cloth, maundy cloth, serge, fustian, velvet, and Holland A linen; and Lord Steward's Dept., Brussels linen.Google Scholar

8 One market price index that does show a greater rise between 1780 and 1799 is the average value of East India Company broadcloth exports (Deane and Cole, p. 84), but we do not know how the quality of the broadcloth shifted.Google Scholar

9 Imlah, Albert H., Economic Elements of the Pax Britannica (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), pp. 210–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 While the export of cottons shifted toward India and other low-income markets, that for woolens shifted back to Europe from those distant poor countries after Waterloo, suggesting that the product mix for traditional textiles did not shift towards shoddy. See Davis, Ralph, The Industrial Revolution and British Overseas Trade (Leicester, 1979), pp. 21–23.Google Scholar

11 Deane, Phyllis, “New Estimates of Gross National Product for the United Kingdom, 1830–1914,” Review of Income and Wealth, ser. 14 (06 1968), pp. 103–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 This calculation assumes that the national-product price deflator was in fixed proportion to our 1983 cost-of-living index between 1819 and 1830, and then followed Deane's price index from 1830 to 1851. Using our present index for 1819–1830 or using the Deane national consumption deflator for 1830–1851 would yield a purchasing power gain below 1.38 percent for 1819–1851, as the reader can confirm using the figures presented in the text and in Table 1. Any such alternative would reinforce the point made in the text.Google Scholar

We suspect that the same distinction between types of deflators explains most of the pre-1830 contrasts noted by Crafts. We cannot present detailed pre-1830 accounting, however, because we cannot extract price deflators (or replicate the real-product calculations) from the sources Crafts has cited.

13 A second conceptual difference blurs the contrast Crafts hopes to highlight, yet has little empirical bearing here. He should have contrasted the real wage with product per member of the labor force, not product per capita. As it happens, the distinction makes little difference for the period 1780–1851. Crafts misuses labor force concepts in another way that does matter, however. He argues that the higher unemployment around 1820 implies that workers' real annual earnings advanced more rapidly after 1820, and more slowly up to 1820, than our real wage series shows. We agree, and our 1983 article made much of the point. It does not follow, however, that this fact adds to the growth rate gaps that bother him. The unemployment adjustment should also affect any measure of national product per member of the labor force, leaving the same gap.Google Scholar

14 See the contrasts in product per capita estimates summarized in Lindert, Peter H., “Remodeling British Economic History: A Review Article,” this JOURNAL, 23 (12 1983), pp. 988–90;Google Scholar and Crafts, N. F. R., “National Income Estimates and the British Standard of Living Debate: A Reappraisal,” Explorations in Economic History, 17 (06 1980), pp. 176–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 See, for example, his clear warnings about 1800–1831 in Crafts, , “National Income Estimates,” and “British Economic Growth, 1700–1831: A Review of the Evidence,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 36 (05 1983), pp. 191–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar