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How Did the Location of Industry Respond to Falling Transport Costs in Britain Before World War I?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2006

NICHOLAS CRAFTS  and
ABAY MULATU
NICHOLAS CRAFTS
Affiliation:
Professor of Economic History, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK. E-mail: [email protected].
ABAY MULATU
Affiliation:
Research Fellow at the Cambridge-MIT Institute, Mill Lane Cambridge, CB32 1RQ. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

This article explores the location of industry in pre–World War I Britain using a model that takes account both of factor endowment and also of New Economic Geography influences. Broadly speaking, the pattern of industrial location in this period was quite persistent and regional specialization changed little. The econometric results show that factor endowments had much stronger effects than proximity to markets, although the latter was an attraction for industries with large plant size. Overall, falling transport costs had relatively little effect on industrial location at a time when proximity to natural resources, notably coal, mattered most.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 66 , Issue 3 , September 2006 , pp. 575 - 607
Copyright
© 2006 The Economic History Association

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