Lecture 5:
An Agricultural Revolution
ECON 451
Fall 2012
Professor David Jacks
1
First, a brief review of the facts…
1.) Before the 18th Century, population pretty
much everywhere tended to outrun the means of
agricultural supply.
2.) In other words, the Malthusian trap was still
in effect.
3.) But c. 1650, England alone seemed to break
through…
Introduction
2
England, 1200-1800 AD
3
But in the period from 1650 to 1850 AD:
1.) Manufactured output exploded…the
industrial revolution was emerged.
2.) Urbanization rates soared, roughly from
12.5% to 50%.
Introduction
4
English agricultural productivity was stagnant.
This implies that standards of living must have
declined as population increased dramatically.
In fact, standards of living would have had to
decline by two-thirds due to the increase in
population, implying that English workers:
Three possible worlds
5
English agricultural productivity was stagnant.
But this is problematic since we have no
indications that average standards of living
dropped this sharply.
This is also not consistent with the marked
increase in urbanization.
Urbanization as a rough indicator of agricultural
Three possible worlds
6
England enjoyed improvements in agricultural
output but only through specialization and trade.
That is, shortages generated by slowly growing
agricultural output and rapidly growing
population could be met with food imports.
This is problematic since the English were
increasingly shifting out of agriculture, but
Three possible worlds
7
England enjoyed improvements in agricultural
output but only through specialization and trade.
What is more, this export trade was in very
“calorie-wasting” products.
Exports of dairy, meat, and associated byproducts like wool and hides suggest no gross
lack of calorie production.
Three possible worlds
8
An agricultural revolution
That is, an increase in English agricultural
productivity, so that rising demands on food
supplies were met through:
a.) the diffusion of new crops (really new:
potatoes; sort of new: peas and beans)
Three possible worlds
9
An agricultural revolution
c.) organizational changes in agriculture (e.g. the
Enclosure movement)
Three possible worlds
10
An agricultural revolution
d.) the diffusion of new techniques (e.g. the
Norfolk system of crop rotation)
Wheat or barley
Oats, peas, or beans
Three possible worlds
Fallow
Wheat
Oats
Turnips
Clover
11
Big problems with the first two explanations
(stagnant output and trade-led increases in
output) in conforming to the data
plus
the lack of clear exceptions to the third
→
directed the attention of economic historians to
Three possible worlds
12
Putting aside such doubts, something had to
have happened in or to agriculture…
But figuring out what that “something” is
difficult because of the lack of good data.
There were no agricultural censuses in the UK
until 1870, well after the supposed revolution.
Three possible worlds
13
1.) We need to be more precise so what do we
exactly mean by “agricultural revolution”?
First, the terminology is misleading: it seems to
put the agricultural revolution in league with the
industrial revolution, but the former was an even
longer process than the latter.
And as we will see, there are doubts about how
Two remaining questions
14
Many researchers use the term as a shorthand for
“the transformation of agriculture”:
1.) from low- to high-yields (see Clark)
2.) or from a barrier to a necessary condition for
economic growth (see Price)
Two remaining questions
15
2.) What explains this timing of the AR?
Output must have increased during this time.
But was this an exogenous change in agriculture
or an endogenous response to changes in
domestic and international markets?
That is, have the historians been putting “the cart
before the horse”?
Two remaining questions
16
If this was only a response to organizational or
technological improvement, these innovations
would have to date exactly from 1650 to 1850.
If this was an endogenous response to changes
in markets, the necessary preconditions must
have been put in place before 1650.
Two remaining questions
17
To complicate matters further, new evidence
shows that the big productivity gains in yields
only occurred in the period from 1820-1850.
Perhaps, suggests a role for the French Wars of
1793-1815 and the realignment of markets.
More likely, suggests a role for industrialization
and urbanization if not leading agriculture than
Two remaining questions
18
It also raises a somewhat troubling prospect.
Any increase in output before that point had to
be met with an increase on the extensive margin
(more land inputs).
But land inputs fixed apart from reclamation.
Two remaining questions
19
So rather than trying to explain the agricultural
revolution, we might want to try to explain
agricultural stagnation as a way forward:
1.) lack of investment to high interest
rates/opportunity costs (Clark)
2.) lack of knowledge about soil fertility (Allen)
Three inhibitors?
20