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Invisible Handshakes in Lancashire: Cotton Spinning in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Michael Huberman
Michael Huberman
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario K9J7B8, Canada.
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Abstract

In Lancashire cotton spinning in the heyday of laissez-faire capitalism the labor market did not operate as an auction market. Evidence on piece-rate flexibility, length of tenure, and seniority is consistent with Okun's contract approach. Both workers and firms incurred initial set-up costs. Workers wanted to protect their initial investments in training, and firms, faced with a labor supply that varied in reliability and regularity, had a desire to cover initial hiring and tryout costs. The need to maintain long-term attachments had implications for wage and employment adjustment and the age structure of the labor force.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , December 1986 , pp. 987 - 998
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1986

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