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A SUMMARY OF THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION ISSUES
By conventional estimates output per acre and output per worker in English
agriculture in 1860 was about triple that in the 1300.
When did this change take place?
What caused this change?
Nick Crafts and Knick Harley, following the bulk of historians such as
Mark Overton, believe that the change was concentrated in the Industrial
Revolution years (1760-1860), and was largely caused by productivity
advance (An October 1998 working paper by the "Two Nicks" has this as a
key assumption). About half of their estimated growth of output per
worker in Britain in the Industrial Revolution stems from this assumption.
The coincidence of such a diffuse agricultural revolution with the
Industrial Revolution implies that the IR was the result of widespread
changes in incentives or social attitudes. It was not an accident of the
textile industries.
Thus whether this agricultural revolution took place in 1760-1860 has
important consequences for:
(a) Estimation of growth in the IR, and of output per capita in Britain
on the eve or the IR.
(b) Understanding why the IR took place in 1760 and in Britain.
(c) Understanding whether pre-industrial society had significant untapped
growth potential held down by its institutional structure.
There are two major issues that have been debated in this forum.
(1) What was output in agriculture in 1850-60 relative to 1700? Here the
estimates range from about 2.7 (Overton) through 1.9 (Allen and Brunt) to
1.4 (Clark). Only the Overton figure would be acceptable to the Two
Nicks.
The debate has been whether the best way to estimate output is from
consumption demand (Allen), farm outputs (Brunt), or farm inputs (Clark).
(2) What caused whatever was the output growth (whenever it took place)?
Was it institutions (enclosure, land holding, markets), technological
innovations, or changing relative prices, or coordination equilibria.
Grantham argues the technology was in place since at least the
middle ages, and urban demand was a key stimulus. Clark agrees there was
little technological advance but thinks changing relative factor prices
explain much output growth (See Clark, JEH, 1993).
Liam Brunt suggests technological advances in the 18th c. were important.
Overton and Allen think English institutions were very important also (as
may Liam).
Gregory Clark
Professor
Department of Economics
University of California
Davis, CA 95616
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