Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-09T22:51:19.138Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

More Machines, Better Machines…or Better Workers?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2012

JAMES BESSEN
JAMES BESSEN*
Affiliation:
Lecturer, Boston University School of Law, and Director, Research on Innovation, 202 High Head Road, Harpswell, ME 04079. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

How much of the rapid growth in output per man-hour in nineteenth-century cotton weaving arose from technical change and how much arose from price-driven substitution of capital for labor? Using an engineering production function, I find that factor price changes account for little of the growth in output per man-hour. However, much of the growth and most of the apparent labor-saving bias arose not from inventions, but from improved labor quality—better workers spent less time monitoring the looms. Labor quality played a critical role in the persistent association between economic growth and capital deepening in this important sector.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 72 , Issue 1 , 12 March 2012 , pp. 44 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2012

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

Acemoglu, Daron. “Equilibrium Bias of Technology.” Econometrica 75, no. 5 (2007): 1371–1409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, Robert C.The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arrow, Kenneth, Levhari, David, and Sheshinski, Eytan. “A Production Function for the Repairman Problem.” Review of Economic Studies 39, no. 3 (1972): 241–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asher, Ephraim. “Industrial Efficiency and Biased Technical Change in American and British Manufacturing: The Case of Textiles in the Nineteenth Century.” The Journal of Economic History 32, no. 2 (1972): 431–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bessen, James. “Technology and Learning by Factory Workers: The Stretch-Out at Lowell, 1842.” The Journal of Economic History 63, no. 1 (2003): 33–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bessen, James. “More Machines, Better Machines…Or Better Workers?” Working Paper, 2010, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1299577.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackorby, Charles, Knox Lovell, C.A., and Marie, C. Thursby. “Extended Hicks- Neutral Technical Change.” Economic Journal 86, no. 344 (1976): 845–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chenery, Hollis B.“Engineering Production Functions.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 63, no. 4 (1949): 507–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Gregory. “Why Isn't the Whole World Developed? Lessons from the Cotton Mills.” The Journal of Economic History 47, no. 1 (1987): 141–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Gregory. A Farewell to Alms. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, Richard N., and Summers, Lawrence. “The Labor Scarcity Controversy Reconsidered.” Economic Journal 90, no. 357 (1980): 129–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
David, Paul A., and Solar, Peter. “A Bicentenary Contribution to the History of the Cost of Living in America.” In Research in Economic History, edited by Paul Uselding, 1–80. Greenwich: JAI Press, Inc., Volume 2, 1977.Google Scholar
Diamond, Peter, McFadden, Daniel, and Rodriguez, Miguel. “Measurement of the Elasticity of Factor Substitution and Bias of Technical Change.” In Production Economics: A Dual Approach to Theory and Applications, edited by Melvyn Fuss and Daniel MacFadden, 2, 1978. Contribution to Economic Analysis, North Holland.Google Scholar
Draper, George Otis. Labor-Saving Looms, 3rd edition. Draper Corporation, 1907.Google Scholar
Dublin, Thomas. Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826–1860, 2nd edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert W.“The Specification Problem in Economic History.” The Journal of Economic History 27, no. 3 (1967): 283–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibb, George. The Saco-Lowell Shops: Textile Machinery Building in New England, 1813–1949. New York: Russell & Russell, 1950.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habakkuk, H.J.American and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1962.Google Scholar
Harley, C. Knick. “Reassessing the Industrial Revolution: A Macro View.” In The British Industrial Revolution: An Economic Perspective, edited by Mokyr, Joel, 160–205. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Harriman, Henry I.“The Harriman Automatic Loom.” Transactions of the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers, no. 68 (1900): 318.Google Scholar
Harvard Business School, Baker Library Historical Collections, Records of the Lawrence Company.Google Scholar
Hicks, John. The Theory of Wages. London: Macmillan, 1932.Google Scholar
Jeremy, David J.“Innovation in American Textile Technology During the Early Nineteenth Century.” Technology and Culture 14 (1973): 40–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Josephson, Hannah. Golden Threads: New England Mill Girls and Magnates. New York: Russell & Russell, 1949.Google Scholar
Layer, Robert G.Earnings of Cotton Mill Operatives, 1815–1914. Cambridge, MA: Committee in Research in Economic History, 1955.Google Scholar
Lazonick, William, and Brush, Thomas. “The ‘Horndal Effect’ in Early U.S. Manufacturing.” Explorations in Economic History 22, no. 1 (1985): 53–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levhari, David, and Sheshinski, Eytan. “A Microeconomic Production Function.” Econometrica 38, no. 3 (May 1970): 559–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCloskey, Donald. “The Industrial Revolution: A Survey.” In The Economic History of Britain Since 1700, edited by Floud, R.C. and McCloskey, C.N., 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
McGouldrick, Paul F.New England Textiles in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968.Google Scholar
Montgomery, James. A Practical Detail of the Cotton Manufacture of the United States of America, First Edition. Glasgow: John Niven, 1840.Google Scholar
Montgomery, James. A Practical Detail of the Cotton Manufacture of the United States of America, Second Edition, 1843. In Technology and Power in the Early American Cotton Industry: James Montgomery, the Second Edition of His “Cotton Manufacture” and the Justitia Controversy about Relative Power Costs, edited by Jeremy, David, 47–218. Darby, PA: Diane Publishing, 1990.Google Scholar
Nelson, Richard R., and Pack, Howard. “The Asian Miracle and Modern Growth Theory.” Economic Journal 109, no. 457 (1999): 416–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olmstead, Alan L., and Rhode, Paul. “Biological Innovation and Productivity Growth in the Antebellum Cotton Economy.” The Journal of Economic History 68, no. 4 (2008): 1123–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothbarth, Edwin. “Causes of the Superior Efficiency of U.S.A. Industry as Compared to British Industry.” Economic Journal 56, no. 223 (1946): 383–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solow, Robert M.“A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 70, no. 1 (1956): 65–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strassmann, W. Paul. Risk and Technological Innovation. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1959.Google Scholar
Swan, Trevor. “Economic Growth and Capital Accumulation.” Economic Record 32, no. 2 (1956): 334–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temin, Peter. “Labor Scarcity and the Problem of American Industrial Efficiency in the 1850s.” The Journal of Economic History 26, no. 3 (1966): 277–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uttley, Thomas William. Cotton Spinning and Manufacturing in the United States: A Report. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1905.Google Scholar
Ware, Caroline. The Early New England Cotton Manufacture. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1931.Google Scholar
Wibe, Sören. “Engineering Production Functions: A Survey.” Economica 51, no. 204 (1984): 401–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Carroll D.Report on the Factory System of the United States. Census of Manufactures, v. 2 (1880): 52–54.Google Scholar
Young, Alwyn. “The Tyranny of Numbers: Confronting the Statistical Realities of the East Asian Growth Experience.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 110, no. 3 (1995): 641–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Thomas M.The American Cotton Industry. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902.Google Scholar