Income Elasticities of Demand and the Release of Labor by Agriculture During the British Industrial Revolution: A Further Appraisal

There has been little attention given to the role of the pattern of demand in the transfer of labor from agriculture to industry during the British Industrial Revolution. This is despite the prominence of Engel effects in many economists’ models of economic development (Kelley and Williamson, 1974, chap. 10). The few discussions which do exist indicate an expectation that the income elasticity of demand for food in the eighteenth century may have been high (Crafts, 1976; Ippolito, 1975). If this was so, it could be expected to slow down the rate of industrialization, ceteris paribus.