Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:25:48.274Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Spinning Jenny and the Industrial Revolution: A Reappraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2011

Ugo Gragnolati ,
Daniele Moschella  and
Emanuele Pugliese
Ugo Gragnolati*
Affiliation:
Ph.D. Candidates, LEM, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Piazza Martiri della Libert 33, 56127, Pisa, Italy. E-mails: u.gragnolati@sssup.it.
Daniele Moschella*
Affiliation:
Ph.D. Candidates, LEM, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Piazza Martiri della Libert 33, 56127, Pisa, Italy. E-mails: d.moschella@sssup.it.
Emanuele Pugliese*
Affiliation:
Ph.D. Candidates, LEM, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Piazza Martiri della Libert 33, 56127, Pisa, Italy. E-mails: e.pugliese@sssup.it.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Why was the Industrial Revolution British? In a recent article published in this Journal, Robert Allen argues that only in England was the price of labor relative to capital high enough to justify the adoption of the labor-saving technologies which characterized the Industrial Revolution.1 To support his argument, he uses the spinning jenny as a case study. The jenny was indeed an important labor-saving technology that was invented and widely adopted in England but not in France. Allen explains this fact by calculating the returns to adopting the jenny in each country: according to his calculations the jenny was profitable in England but not in France.

The present note shows that Allen's conclusions rest on implausible profitability computations. In particular, Allen assumes that output remains constant after the adoption of the jenny while hours worked decrease dramatically. From a theoretical perspective, this is equivalent to an assumption that hours worked move inversely with the marginal product of labor. As soon as these restrictive assumptions are abandoned, the jenny turns out being profitable both in England and in France. Hence the mystery of the adoption of the jenny during the Industrial Revolution remains.

Type
NOTES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 71 , Issue 2 , 06 June 2011 , pp. 455 - 460
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2011

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 Industrial Revolution in Miniature: The Spinning Jenny in Britain, France, and India.” University of Oxford, Department of Economics, Economics Series Working Papers, No. 375, 2007.Google Scholar
Allen, Robert C.The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009a.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, Robert C.“The Industrial Revolution in Miniature: The Spinning Jenny in Britain, France, and India.” The Journal of Economic History 69, no. 4 (2009b): 901–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, Robert C.“Why the Industrial Revolution was British: Commerce, Induced Innovation, and the Scientific Revolution.” Economic History Review, forthcoming.Google Scholar
De Vries, Jan. “The Industrial Revolutionand the Industrious Revolution.” The Journal of Economic History 54, no. 2 (1994): 249–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landes, David. The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.Google Scholar