A historical account, 1780–1850

In a sense, modern economic history only begins in about 1850. Before then, we only have reasonably reliable data on economic growth for Britain, the United States and (to a lesser extent) France. These three countries, important as they were, did not dominate the ‘world economy’ of the day to such an extent that we can judge its performance from theirs. Nor was there, much before 1850, a ‘world economy’ with any close linkage through trade, communications and flows of capital and labour: it was, as we have seen, only during the 1840s that the steamship, the telegraph and the railway established such links among the ‘Atlantic Economies’ of Europe and North America. Before 1850, then, we have a sort of economic prehistory, a prehistory which extends to the long wave: for we have just enough information on economic growth in the early nineteenth century to say with some confidence that it did not follow a long wave pattern. Let us for example look at the only more or less complete series for national income, that for the USA (Figure 8.2 and Table 8.1). If we take Kondratiev’s dates for price peaks (1814) and troughs (1790 and 1849) as the basis for long wave upswings and downswings, the ‘upswing’ of 1790–1814 has a lower growth rate (3.3 per cent p.a.) than the ‘downswing’ of 1814–49 (5.4 per cent p.a.). If we look instead for Kuznets swings of 18/19 years, based in the manner of Currie (1988) on rainfall fluctuations, the result is much more satisfactory: ‘rainfall upswing’ periods have markedly higher growth rates than ‘rainfall downswings’, except for the 1806–25 period. (The ‘upswing’ of 1806–15 was marred first by the blockade and counter-blockade of Britain and Napoleonic France, and then actual war between the USA and Britain; the ‘downswing’ of 1815–24/5 was blessed by the ending of hostilities.) Nor do the series on industrial production, which we have for Britain from 1782 and for France from 1815 (Table 8.2), suggest a long wave pattern. What leaps to the eye from the British data is the damage done by the ‘global war’ from 1792 to 1815; the only other apparent feature is a slight tendency for growth to decelerate – a deceleration which disappears in the more accurate series in Table 8.3. If we take it that French industry in 1815–25 benefited from the end of the war, the main impression from the French data is a marked acceleration over forty years. Figure 8.2 US GNP, 1791–1850, with rainfall peaks and troughs https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315002330/96f0ae00-db50-42be-a6b2-e988738b7df7/content/fig08_02_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Source: Mitchell (1983); Currie (1988) Note: Rainfall swings before 1830 are derived by extrapolation. Table 8.1 Growth of US GNP, 1789–1852, in rainfall upswings and downswings

Rainfall upswings	per cent p.a.	Rainfall downswings	percent p.a.
1789–1796/7	7.3
		1796/7–1806	5.2
1806–1815 [WAR]	0.6
		1815–1824/5 [PEACE]	4.8
1824/5–33/4	6.7
		1833/4–1843	3.3
1843–52	6.3

Note:

before 1830 rainfall peaks and troughs have been estimated by extrapolation from Currie’s series, 1988, which is the direct source for data after 1830. Growth rates are calculated from Mitchell, 1983.

Table 8.2 Juglar growth rates of industrial production, Great Britain and France, 1782–1857 (per cent per annum)

Juglar period	Britain	Juglar period	France
1782–1792	4.8
1792–1802	2.4
1802–1815	2.1
1815–1825	3.9	1815–1824	1.4
1825–1836	3.7	1824—1836	0.5
1836–1845	3.3	1836–1847	2.3
1845–1857	3.3	1847–1856	2.8

Source: Mitchell, 1978 Table 8.3 British industrial output growth, 1700–1831 (per cent per annum)

1700–1760	0.71
1760–1770	1.23
1770–1780	1.79
1780–1790	2.40
1790–1801	1.83
1801–1811	2.72
1811–1821	2.63
1821–1831	3.65

Source: Crafts, 1983, Table 3