Conference Paper

Productivity growth in the Industrial Revolution: a new growth accounting perspective

Abstract: The issue of why productivity growth during the British industrial revolution was slow despite the arrival of famous inventions is revisited using a growth accounting methodology based on an endogenous innovation model and the perspective of recent literature on general purpose technologies. The results show that steam had a relatively small and long-delayed impact on productivity growth when benchmarked against later technologies such as electricity or ICT. Even so, technological change including embodiment effects accounted entirely for the acceleration in labor productivity growth that allowed the economy to withstand rapid population growth without a decline in living standards.

Status: Published in Technological change : a workshop (2002: November 14-15)

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Part of Series: Proceedings

Publication Date: 2002

Issue: Nov