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The Industrial Revolution in Miniature: The Spinning Jenny in Britain, France, and India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2009

Robert C. Allen
Robert C. Allen*
Affiliation:
Professor of Economic History, Department of Economics, Oxford University, Nuffield College, New Road, Oxford OX1 1NF, United Kingdom. E-mail: bob.allen@nuffield.ox.ac.uk.
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Abstract

The spinning jenny helps explain why the Industrial Revolution occurred in Britain rather than in France or India. Wages were exceptionally high relative to capital prices in Britain, so the jenny was profitable to use in Britain but not elsewhere. Since it was only profitable to use the jenny in Britain, that was the only country where it as worth incurring the costs of developing it. Irrespective of the quality of their institutions or the progressiveness of their cultures, neither the French nor the Indians would have found it profitable to mechanize cotton production in the eighteenth century.

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ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 69 , Issue 4 , December 2009 , pp. 901 - 927
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2009

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