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Numerare Est Errare: Agricultural Output and Food Supply in England Before and During the Industrial Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2013

Morgan Kelly  and
Cormac Ó Gráda
Morgan Kelly
Affiliation:
Professor, School of Economics, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland. E-mail: morgan.kelly@ucd.ie.
Cormac Ó Gráda
Affiliation:
Professor Emeritus, School of Economics, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland. E-mail: cormac.ograda@ucd.ie.
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Abstract

Carefully constructed but fallible historical estimates of GDP and agricultural output inform our understanding of the preindustrial origins of economic growth. Here we review four recent attempts at estimating agricultural output and food availability in England and Wales at different points between the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution. We highlight their contrasting implications for trends in well-being and nutritional status over time. Building on these estimates, we propose our own tentative, compromise estimate of food availability. The compromise estimates are more coherent with our understanding of conditions before and during the Industrial Revolution.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 73 , Issue 4 , December 2013 , pp. 1132 - 1163
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2013 

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Footnotes

We are grateful to Nick Crafts, Bernard Harris, Joel Mokyr, Craig Muldrew, Kevin O'Rourke, Deborah Oxley, Peter Solar, David Stead, Michael Turner, three anonymous referees, and the editors of this JOURNAL for advice and critical comment, and to Stephen Broadberry for sharing data with us.

References

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