¹ Floud and McCloskey's recent compilation on the economic history of Britain, although an excellent presentation of recent research, suffers this problem. We learn much more about what did not cause British economic development than about what did. See Floud, Roderick and McCloskey, Donald, eds., The Economic History of Britain since 1700 (Cambridge, 1981).Google Scholar

² See, for example, Easterlin, Richard, “Why Isn't the Whole World Developed?” this JOURNAL, 41 (03 1981) pp. 1–19;Google ScholarLandes, David, The Unbound Prometheus (Cambridge, 1969);Google ScholarHirschman, Albert, The Strategy of Economic Development (New Haven, 1966);Google ScholarRosenberg, Nathan, Perspectives on Technology (London, 1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ Henderson, W. O., Britain and Industrial Europe, 1750–1870 (2nd edn., London, 1965), pp. 4–9;Google Scholar and Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, p. 148.Google Scholar

⁴ Milward, Alan S. and Saul, S. B., The Economic Development of Continental Europe, 1780–1870, (London, 1973), pp. 190, 296, 299, 303,Google Scholar and Henderson, Britain and Industrial Europe, p. 143.Google Scholar

⁵ Mehta, S. D., The Cotton Mills of India, 1854 to 1954 (Bombay, 1954), p. 5.Google Scholar

⁶ Ure, Andrew, The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain (London, 1836), p. lxxv.Google Scholar

⁷ Ibid., p. xliii, lxxvii.

⁸ Ibid., p. lxxviii.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ U.S. House of Representatives, Report of the Tariff Board, Cotton Manufactures (Washington, D.C., 1912), table 21, p. 46.Google Scholar

¹¹ Ibid., tables 106, 107, pp. 214–19. World net exports is calculated as the sum of the net sales of yarn and cloth by countries which are net exporters of cotton goods.

¹² See Lazonick, William, “Factor Costs and the Diffusion of Ring Spinning in Britain Prior to World War I”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 96 (02 1981), pp. 89–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also Lazonick, , “Competition, Specialization and Industrial Decline”, this JOURNAL, 41 (03 1981), pp. 31–38.Google Scholar An earlier criticism of the failure to integrate mills can be found, for the case of the introduction of automatic looms to Britain, in Frankel, M., “Obsolescence and Technological Change in a Maturing Economy”, American Economic Review, 45 (06 1955), pp. 296–319.Google Scholar

¹³ See Chin, Rockwood, Management, Industry and Trade in Cotton Textiles (New Haven, 1965), p. 85.Google Scholar See also Lazonick, “Factor Costs”, pp. 104–7.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Lazonick, “Factor Costs”, pp. 102, 104–7.Google Scholar

¹⁵ It cost $0.00446 per pound more to ship ring weft yarn between factories than to ship mule weft yarn, well yarn forming the cross threads in weaving cloth. The cost of manufacturing standard gray cloth in Britain, exclusive of the cotton, is given in the U.S. Tariff Board report at $0.123 per pound of cloth. The saving of transport costs would only apply to half the yarn, and 25 percent of British spindles were in integrated mills anyway, giving the total extra transport cost as 1.36 percent of the manufacturing cost. (U.S. House of Representatives, Report of the Tariff Board, Cotton Manufactures, p. 471).Google Scholar

¹⁶ See Copeland, Melvin, The Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States (Washington, DC., 1912), pp. 284–86.Google Scholar Because of the extensive development of the Liverpool cotton market, English spinners were able to economize through keeping smaller stocks of cotton at the mills than those of other countries, including the United States. French mills, for example, were reported to have had twice the stocks of cotton that the British mills had (Forrester, R. B., The Cotton Industry in France [Manchester, 1921], p. 30). Someone had to hold the cotton stocks, however, between their shipment to Europe in the fall and their eventual use in manufacturing. The merchants of Liverpool who fulfilled this function presumably were appropriately rewarded for the capital they had tied up in these stocks, through receiving a higher price when cotton was passed on to the mills.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Copeland, The Cotton Manufacturing Industry, p. 317; Forrester, Cotton Industry in France, p. 31.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Odell, Ralph, U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Special Agents Series, No. 51, Cotton Goods in Russia (Washington, D.C., 1912), pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Odell, Ralph, U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Special Agents Series, No.107, Cotton Goods in China (Washington, D.C., 1916), pp. 175–76.Google ScholarClark, W. A. Graham, U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Special Agents Series, No.13, Cotton Fabrics in British India and the Philippines (Washington, D.C., 1907), pp. 23–24.Google ScholarOdell, Ralph, U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Special Agents Series, No. 157, Cotton Goods in British India, Part VI (Washington, D.C., 1918), p. 39.Google Scholar

²⁰ The share of labor, depreciation and repairs, coal, and capital in the manufacturing cost of plain cloth in a British mill can be calculated independently from two sources. The U.S. House of Representatives, Report of the Tariff Board, Cotton Manufactures, pp. 462–67, 470–71, appendix D, pp. 799–820; tables 209, 210, pp. 662–65;Google Scholar and von Schultze-Gaevernitz, G., Cotton Trade in England and on the Continent (London, 1895), pp. 157–58. The cost shares these sources imply agree fairly closely.Google Scholar

²¹ See Forrester, Cotton Industry in France, p. 36.Google Scholar

²² Morris, Morris D., The Emergence of an Industrial Labor Force in India (Berkeley, 1965), p. 29Google Scholar, reports figures showing profit rates of 27.1 percent on average between 1905 and 1914 in the Bombay industry. This rate greatly overstates the real returns since it includes depreciation on capital and is calculated on the nominal share value of the firms. Since any earlier profits which were not paid out in dividends are added to the capital value of the firm, the real capital stock could be many times the nominal share value. profits net of depreciation and payments to the mill managing agents averaged only 10.3 See, for example, Morris, The Emergence of an Industrial Labor Force in India, pp. 32, 203.Google Scholar

²³ See, for example, Morris, The Emergence of an Industrial Labor Force in India, pp. 32, 203.

²⁴ See Besso, S. L., The Cotton Industry in Switzerland, Vorarlberg, and Italy (Manchester, 1910).Google Scholar

²⁵ Clark, W. A. Graham, U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Special Agents Series, No. 24, Cotton Fabrics in Middle Europe (Washington, D.C., 1908), p. 127.Google Scholar

²⁶ Forrester, Cotton Industry in France, p. 41.Google Scholar

²⁷ Copeland, The Cotton Manufacturing Industry, p. 299.Google Scholar

²⁸ U.S. House of Representatives, Report of the Tariff Board, Cotton Manufactures, table 153, pp. 490–93.Google Scholar

²⁹ Clark, W.A. Graham, U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Special Agents Series, No. 86, Cotton Goods in Japan (Washington, D.C., 1913), pp. 191, 194;Google ScholarOdell, Cotton Goods in Russia, p. 16;Google ScholarOdell, Ralph, U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Special Agents Series, No. 48, Cotton Goods in Italy (Washington, D.C., 1912), p. 24.Google Scholar

³⁰ The information on outputs and twist per inch for Japan, India, and China is from Pearse, Arno S., The Cotton Industry of Japan and China (Manchester, 1929);Google ScholarPearse, Arno S., The Cotton Industry of India (Manchester, 1930);Google Scholar and Moser, Charles K., The Cotton Textile Industry of Far Eastern Countries (Boston, 1930).Google ScholarFor the United States the output and corrections for twist per inch are from the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers, Year Book, 1928, p. 212.Google Scholar For England the outputs are given in Winterbottom, James, Cotton Spinning Calculations and Yarn Costs (2nd edn.London, 1921), pp. 204–15.Google Scholar

³¹ See Saxonhouse, Gary, “Productivity Change in the Japanese Cotton Spinning Industry, 1891–1935” (Ph. D. thesis, Yale University, 1971), p. 123.Google Scholar

³² Forrester, Cotton Industry in France, p. 41.Google Scholar

³³ Dohn, R.M.R., The German Cotton Industry (Manchester, 1913), p. 51.Google Scholar

³⁴ Pearse, The Cotton Industry of India, p. 129.Google Scholar

³⁵ Ibid., p. 149.

³⁶ Ibid., p. 155.

³⁷ Great Britain, Cotton Board, Labour Dept., Report on Labour Redeployment in the Musgrave Cardroom, Bolton (London, 1948), pp. 17–24.Google Scholar

³⁸ Copeland, The Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States, p. 299.Google Scholar

³⁹ Pearse, Cotton Textile Industry of India, p. 129.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ From the relative strength of Indian and U.S. yarns it appears that in the 1920s Indian mills used Cotton which had fibers slightly less than one-eighth of an inch shorter for 20s yarn. Pearse gives a set of prices of cottons in India, together with the length of the cotton fiber. (Pearse, Cotton Industry of India, pp. 42–43). These prices show that with cottons of staple around seven-eighths of an inch, an increase of staple length of one-eighth inch increased cotton prices by about 12 percent. A similar calculation for the Memphis market for staple of one inch gives the same result (National Association of Cotton Manufacturers, Year Book, 1928, pp. 138–41).Google Scholar

⁴¹ Clark, Cotton Goods in Japan, pp. 80–81.Google Scholar

⁴² Clark, Cotton Fabrics in British India, p. 13.Google Scholar

⁴³ Rutnagur, S. M., Bombay Industries: the Cotton Mills (Bombay, 1927), p. 24.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Forrester, Cotton Industry in France, p. 31.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Clark, W. A. Graham, U. S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Special Agents Series, No. 36, Cotton Goods in Latin America, Part II (Washington, D.C., 1910), p. 48.Google Scholar

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⁵² U.S. House of Representatives, Report of the Tariff Board, Cotton Manufactures, table 147, p. 472.Google Scholar

⁵³ Clark, Cotton Fabrics in Middle Europe, p. 161.Google Scholar

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⁵⁵ Clark, W. A. Graham, U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Special Agents Series, No. 18, The Cotton Textile Trade in the Turkish Empire, Greece and Italy (Washington, D.C., 1908), p. 48.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Apart from those in the Reports of Clark and Odell, such comments can be found in Forrester, , Cotton Industry in France, pp. 42–43;Google ScholarGreat Britain, House of Commons, Report of the Indian Factory Labour Commission, British Parliamentary Papers, Cd. 4292, 1908, p. 20; Great Britain, House of Commons, Minutes of Evidence taken before the Indian Industrial Commission, British Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 234, 1919, p. 278; Moser, Cotton Textile Industry of the Far Eastern Countries, pp. 15, 68; Pearse, Cotton Industry of Japan and China, pp. 165, 172; Pearse, Cotton Industry of India, p. 53.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ See Saxonhouse, Gary, “Productivity Change and Labor Absorption in Japanese Cotton Spinning, 1891–1935,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 91 (05 1977), pp. 195–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁸ Copeland, Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States, p. 34.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Saxonhouse, Gary and Wright, Gavin, “Two Forms of Cheap Labor in Textile History,” in Saxonhouse, and Wright, , eds., Technique, Spirit and Form in the Making of Modern Economies: Essays in Honor of William N. Parker (Greenwich, 1984), table 24, p. 24.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ I am grateful to Gavin Wright for pointing this out.Google Scholar

⁶¹ If the machine-worker ratio on new machinery is increasing at a rate of v relative to the machine-worker ratio on old machinery, the rate of growth of machinery investment is g, and machinery has a life of N years, then the machine-worker ratio on the existing stock of machinery relative to that on new machinery will be:Google Scholar

⁶² Report of the Indain Factory Labour Commission, appendix C.Google Scholar

⁶³ Roberts, Charles, A Manual of Anthropometry (London, 1878), table 9, p. 86.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Moser, Cotton Textile Industry of the Far Eastern Countries, p. 101.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Senate, U.S., Immigration Commission, Abstracts of the Reports of the Immigration Commission (Washington, D.C., 1911), table 7, pp. 329–33.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Clark, Cotton Goods in Latin America, Part II, p. 48.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Pearse, Cotton Industry of India, p. 158.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Ibid., p. 129

⁶⁹ Moser, Cotton Textile Industry of the Far Eastern Countries, p. 101.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Anstey, Vera, The Economic Development of India (4th edn., London, 1952), p. 276.Google Scholar

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⁷³ Gregory Clark, “Productivity Growth without Technical Change: European Agriculture before 1850” (unpublished manuscript). See also Gregory Clark, “The Cost of Capital and Medieval Agricultural Technique” (unpublished manuscript).Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Smith, Adam, The Wealth of National (New York, 1937), p. 75.Google Scholar

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⁷⁷ Habakkuk, H. J., American and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century: the Search for Labor-Saving Inventions (Cambridge, 1962), is the most celebrated argument for the influence of high American wages.Google ScholarDavid, Paul, Technical Choice, Innovation and Economic Growth (Cambridge, 1975), chap. 1, contains an extensive summary and discussion of the various labor scarcity analyses of American technological development.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Wood, George Henry, The History of Wages in the Cotton Trade (London, 1910), p. 143.Google Scholar

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⁸⁰ Clark “Productivity Growth without Technical Change.”Google Scholar