ABSTRACT
What does all this new evidence suggest? Without a doubt, the evidence confirms what has come to be called 'trend acceleration'. Somewhere around the 1820s Britain passed through a secular turning point. National income growth rates were much lower before than after: for example, Harley (1982, p. 286) estimates the growth in per capita income at 0.33 per cent per annum 1770-1815 and 0.86 per cent per annum 1815-41, while aggregate income growth rose from 1.31 to 2.33 per cent per annum. This growth rate doubling is repeated in the industrial production indices, which grew at 1.5 or 1.6 per cent per annum before 18 15 and at 3.0 or 3.2 per cent per annum afterwards (Harley, 1982, p. 276, Divisia Index). Feinstein's capital formation rate also drifts upward during the period: in constant prices, the share of gross domestic investment in national income rose from about 9 per cent in the 1760s to almost 14 per cent in the 1850s (Table 11.3, col. 10); the rate of capital accumulation rose from 1 per cent per annum 1761-1800 to 1.7 per cent per annum 180140 (Feinstein, 1978a, p. 86); the capital per worker growth rate rose from 0.11 per cent per annum 1761-1830 to 0.88 per cent
per annum 1830-60 (Feinstein, 1978a, p. 84).' As far as the standard of living is concerned, the turning point is even more dramatic : the adult male, blue-collar, average real wage failed to increase at all between 1755 and 1819, but then soared at the rate of 1.85 per cent per annum 1819-51 (Lindert and Williamson, 1983a, Table 5, p. 13; Table 2.8 above, 'all blue-collar' workers).
